ep. 17 Wild Roses are worth it. Interview w/ Kevin van Tighem

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Hello and welcome to the Borealis experience. I'm

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delighted to have Kevin Van Tighem with me today. He's a

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native born calgarian naturalist, and writer. He

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published several books in the past decade that are so

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incredibly inspiring. And I feel he has a big message to share

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today. We need to protect our headwaters. We need to reconnect

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to nature, there is more and more people committing suicide

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there is more and more people struggling with finances and

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depression. And we want to give you hope, that there is

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solutions to this recession to this depression that I Berta

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Canada, the world is going through right now. And we want

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to share with you our thoughts on the future. And yeah, again,

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give you hope, and love and appreciation for mother nature

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that is constantly supporting us and nurturing us. Thank you so

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much for listening.

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Also, a

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little disclaimer in the second part of the interview, we were

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sitting together at a distance outside and the wind was blowing

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quiet, noisy Lee. So yeah, please don't mind the wind in

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the background. It is not background noise. It is Mother

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Nature being present with us. Thanks for listening. Hello

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there.

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Kevin.

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So nice to have you here today. I would love to start out this

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conversation and ask you to explain a little bit on how

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connected the water is to plants and to the animals around us.

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Um, well, you know, everything is connected in this world. I

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mean, that's one thing you discover, the more time you

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spend in it, every everything you do, has an effect on on many

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other things and everything that happens in nature has multiple

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effects on so in Alberta, we are a very water short region. And

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we've always valued water. And you know, you were saying

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earlier that Alberta is not full of tree huggers. I'm not

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convinced That's true. I just don't think we've ever looked

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closely enough in the mirror I I think we're starting to look in

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the mirror now that our headwaters are are being

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threatened by proposed coal strip mines. If you look at

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Alberta as a water short region, we use a lot of water we got two

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thirds of Alberta's of Canada's irrigated agriculture in Alberta

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as a real water consumer, every industry that that that makes

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our economy run relies to one degree or another on freshwater

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resources. And yet we have very small rivers. I mean, if you've

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been anywhere else in the world, you know, what we call a river

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most places would call a creek, you know that the Old Man River,

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the bow river and our southern rivers are the smallest ones.

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And yet they go to the part of the province that has the most

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people and the most water demands. So, so water is

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critical. It's critical to our present. But it's also very

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critical to our future. You can live without oil. There are

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those in Alberta that think you can. But you can live without

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oil, but you can't live without water. And you can have an

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economy without oil. But you can't have an economy without

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water. So if you think about that, then you got to say, well,

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where does that water come from? What what's, how do we make sure

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that we will have as much water as we possibly can, given the

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nature of this place we live in which is, you know, the lee side

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of the Rocky Mountains, the part that gets the least moisture bc

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gets all the water, you know, that's why they're all green. We

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turn brown in July because everything dries out. But all of

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our water more well more than 80% of the water that we rely on

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for our towns and our communities and our economy and

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our farms comes from the eastern slopes of the Rocky Mountains

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that that strip of green that you see on the highway map of

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Alberta, running up the west side of the province at an angle

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because it's following the mountains. That's where almost

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all our water comes from. It comes mostly to us as snow in

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the winter. And also as a lot you know, usually we get a lot

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of rain in late May and early June, June and that's the other

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source of water. And you know whereas out in the prairies, you

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know Calgary Medicine Hat Lethbridge way east of red deer,

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you don't see a lot of spring rains and you don't get a lot of

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winter snow. You get a lot in the Rockies and all that snow

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melt in the spring and all the rain goes into the ground.

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Because it's well vegetated there's lots of roots providing

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channels for that water to get into the ground, and then it

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seeps slowly through the ground until they It comes out in the

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springs comes out in the bottoms of rivers and creeks as base

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flow, sometimes weeks, sometimes months later. And so it's this

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Matt marvelous system where we got all this precipitation at

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this high elevation, beautiful Rocky Mountains strip and the

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foothills along the edges of the Rockies, we get all this

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precipitation that goes into a well vegetated landscape and

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comes out as clean, cold spring water into trout streams that

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then come together and become the rivers that support our

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province. So we take that for granted though, like, like we're

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sitting in the cities, are we sitting out in the farms, and we

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turn on the tap, or we fire up the irrigation system, or we

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would look out the window with a river, maybe go tubing in this

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on a Saturday afternoon. ends there, right, we just take it

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for granted, the waters always going to be there. But it's not

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always going to be that you only get as much as nature provides.

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And you can waste a lot of what nature provides. And that's what

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we've done.

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When when it comes to us as groundwater is purified and

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filtered by the ground, and it's slowed down. So we get all that

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that that precipitation in the spring. But we most need water

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in the summer. That's when we're growing crops. And then we also

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need water in those rivers year round, because that's how

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ecosystems stay alive is that they have to stay watered,

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right. So that groundwater post is wonderful. It gives us good

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clean water, and it gives us throughout the year. It's the

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perfect storage system, Mother Nature stores most of our water

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in incredibly beautiful scenery. You couldn't ask for anything

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better, right? Go there all summer long enjoy that green

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landscape, walking on the reservoir that is feeding our

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economy and our society and our communities. But when you start

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to muck around with those eastern slopes, that's when

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everything changes. And we've been mucking around with those

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eastern slopes for probably 30 or 40 years and created what

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looks like an industrialized landscape. People go up there

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now and they see roads, they see well sites, they see big clear

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cuts. And they look at it and they say well, this is a place

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for you know, extracting resources, that's obviously what

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this is all about. They don't see it as a water reservoir,

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they don't see its incredible function and keeping our water

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supply secure. They just see what we've done to it. And they

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think that that defines the landscape. And that's why today

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we have a government that actually thinks that would be

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appropriate to strip mining coal from those eastern slopes,

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because they look at and they say, Well, you know, it's just

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another resource. And that's what we do out here. But every

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time you measure those other resources, you're affecting the

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critical resource, which is water, we can live without coal,

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we can live without trees cut from our eastern slopes, we can

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live without playing around on motorized vehicles that create a

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big erosion funnels on the landscape. But we can never live

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without water. So that's how it sort of all comes together. Hmm.

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I'm wondering like if people knew about this, like people

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being educated, when it comes to headwaters and water resources,

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because I feel, especially people in this big cities, they

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open up the tab and they just see water right and running all

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day long. But if they knew how precious it was, then they

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wouldn't take it as granted. I don't want to say that city

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people are, you know, ignorant and don't know anything about

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ecology, but I feel if they knew more about it, they would

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appreciate it more and destroy dry less and be like totally

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awake that Yeah, of course a coal mine is going to create a

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couple jobs, but it's going to destroy

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our water resource.

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Did you like Do you notice that there is a lack of communication

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or misinformation or what or do people know about this

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ecological literacy? A lot of us live in our own little bubbles.

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You know, we're, we're all busy. We're all distracted, because

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it's a digital media era. And we're getting bombarded with

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information and entertainments and things and so. So it's

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really hard to be connected to nature or to be connected to

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place. We're just too busy, we're just too distracted and

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and we also were conditioned to take a lot of things for

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granted. And so that water in the tap is one of those things

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we take for granted. I think there's a couple I think a lot

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of people are waking up are are generally aware of the fact that

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the water comes down soon from the mountains in the foothills,

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but what they don't understand is the processes that sustain

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that water supply. We I really do believe we need to understand

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better the nature of the places that we live in Because that

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makes us more authentically a part of those places, which is

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good for us culturally. But it also means that we can be more

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attentive and more effective at actually sustaining the things

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that are important to us. And, and that certainly includes

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nature. But sitting within that is our water security. So even

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if you don't care about nature, you've got to have water at some

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point.

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Exactly, exactly. And when it comes to the ecosystem, around

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the rivers around the headwaters, can you talk a

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little bit about the animals and the plants, the trees, but also

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I think I heard a story about wolves and deer influencing the

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water, how the water comes down from the mountains and into into

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the river. Can we talk a little bit about the ecosystem around?

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Sure.

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You know, and we talk about riparian ecosystems. And those

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are the ecosystems that are influenced throughout most of

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the Year by the presence of water, so that so there's a

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little green, you know, if everything in the Alberta

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foothills turns brown, they're still green strips, and that's

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the well watered portions of the landscape. That's the riparian

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area. And we think of those as being very biologically

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important. And they are, you know, I think, like 80% of the

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plants and animals that are native to this part of the

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world, actually rely on those little green ribbons, those

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little riparian strips along streams and around ponds and,

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and wetlands. But in reality, the entire landscape is part of

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the river. And I think that's, that's the, that's the key piece

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that gives us the this, really the solutions to our water

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issues is to recognize that when we make land use decisions, we

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are making water decisions, and we are actually affecting the

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health of our streams. And so how that works is that we get

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our winter snows and the snow lands in the landscape and it

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accumulates and becomes a snowpack. And that is a

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reservoir of water, that's actually most of our water,

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probably 80% of our water is stored in snow through the

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winter, we lose a lot of snow to evaporation because it gets

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trapped in tree canopy and gets looked away by that by the wind

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and things like that, but the snow that goes on the ground is

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our water supply. Then in the spring, starting it's a march

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depending on the elevation, that snow melts, if there's good

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vegetation if the ground is covered with vegetation and, and

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and if there's enough shade to sort of delay the melting of the

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snow. So if it's got good forest cover the snow Well, most of

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that snow will melt to end and settle into the ground, it

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actually soaks in the vegetation slows its run off, and holds it

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long enough to soak into the ground. And then what happens is

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is snow melt is ending usually in late May or early June, we

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get our peak rains. And by now this the soil is nice and soft

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that the vegetation has been growing for the spring. So it's

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been, you know, loosening the soil as it builds its roots. And

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that rain is also able to go into the ground, some of it runs

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off, some of it goes in, the more of it that soaks in, the

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healthier the ecosystem because the more of it it soaks in, the

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more slowly it's released, it still moves downhill, but it

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moves downhill underground, where it's got friction, all

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sorts of things, slowing it down, it's getting filtered. And

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it when it comes out, it comes out in springs and those springs

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are usually the bottoms of valleys are actually in the

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bottoms of creeks and rivers. They call that base flow like

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you know the water in the river, some of it isn't coming from

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upstream, it's actually coming out of the ground. And that's

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why streams keep getting bigger and bigger without tributaries.

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Right. So so that's the good water. That's the best water

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because it's coming to us year round. And we need water year

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round is coming to us clean, it's coming into the rivers cold

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which keeps the streams healthy for things like drought. And

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it's not doing any damage. You know, it's it's, it's it's sweet

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and clean and sustain. The stuff that runs off is the stuff you

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got to worry about. Some water is always going to run off in

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the spring. But a lot of it runs off in the summer too when

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you've got an unhealthy landscape because if the soil is

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hardened, the vegetation is being cut or disturbed. And so

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those hardened then water is sort of soaking in runs off. And

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because it runs off, it's running off fast because it's

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fast. It's got energy, it's picking up dirt, so it doesn't

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just run off, it runs out dirty. It picks up that silt is soil is

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supposed to stay where it was. It's not doing any good once

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it's in the stream. All it does is it plugs up the gravel for

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the trout and the insects and everything else and then it

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points up our reservoirs and then we wonder why we don't have

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as much water stored as we used to So all of that sort of the

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big picture of why the whole landscape is important, the

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whole landscape is our water reservoir. And the underground

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portion is the most critical part. And the underground

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portion relies on healthy vegetation and healthy soils.

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And those are the things we damage with that land use. And

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certainly with coal mining,

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oh, yeah. Big Sky agriculture and, and coal mining,

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threatening to cut off like coal mountaintops, where snow cannot

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accumulate now and, and melt and run off,

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basically just just turns the landscape into rubble. Yeah, and

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the rubble does not work well for streams. And so so go back

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to your wolf thing. The reason that the wolf story from

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Yellowstone is is significant is that when you don't have a lot

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of predators in the landscape, the grazing animals go to the

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best forage, and that's the riparian areas, and they they

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just camp there, they just keep eating it because it's

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productive, and it's really nutritious, so they just stay

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there. But that kind of attention damages vegetation.

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Once there's wolves in the landscape, wolves are 24, seven

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predators, they're always on the on the lookout, they're always

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coursing through the landscape looking for prey. And so they

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make those elk and those deer very nervous. And, and and, and

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it makes it very unsafe to stay in one spot, because now the

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competitors can target you. So they spread out, and to try and

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avoid the predators. And that takes the pressure off the

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riparian areas. And that means that their vegetation gets

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lesser, and that means those streams get healthier. Yeah. So

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it's kind of cool. I mean, everything is connected. Yeah,

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you know, whether we have the full suite of animals, the

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landscape, how we're using the land, how we're how we choose to

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conserve, those things all affect each other.

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It's so beautiful, and we're part of it, we have to stop

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thinking that we are outside of it and can manipulate and abuse

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it, we are part of it. And if we don't take care of it, we will

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pay the bill. At the end of the day, there's a thing about the

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power of positive thinking, you know, there's the thing about

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just sort of a body of theory about how one manages one same

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mental health, which is that you tend to be what you believe you

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are, you decide in your mind that you're a certain kind of

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person. And then because you've you've seen yourself that way,

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you start to model that and in fact, you become that kind of

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person, so you can be as good or as bad as you choose to be. And

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and that comes to this thing about connections to nature is

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we have got a myth that's coming to us from some of the world's

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great religions that we are separate from nature that we you

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know, in the Christian tradition, you know, we have the

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fall we are exiled from Eden. And that was basically our

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isolation from nature. Well, the the longer that we buy into that

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way of thinking about ourselves, the more we make ourselves

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separate from nature. And the more we become an in effect

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orphans, from everything that makes us who we are. Because we

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are not separate from nature, we are totally wired into nature.

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And everything we do affects it and everything in nature does

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affects us. And until we can see that we derive our identity from

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nature. And that we translated it onto nature, the more that

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we're going to be in disharmony with it and and and the more

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will create the self fulfilling prophecy that we are separate

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nature. And you know, what, if you're separate from nature,

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ultimately you're dead? Because nature sustains everything.

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Yeah. So you know, it's worth thinking through. Oh, totally.

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And

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mental health, like you said, is very much tied into how much

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time do you spend outdoors? And in nature? How much do you

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appreciate the food that you eat? How much do you care about

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your body? And?

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And isn't that interesting? Like, so why is mental health

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tied to that? Kind of answers itself, doesn't it? Yeah, that's

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where we get our that's who we are. Yeah. And if we if we, if

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somehow we fragment who we are. Yeah, there's consequences.

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Yeah. mental, physical. Yeah, cultural.

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Yeah. And on my show here, I invite guys that inspire others.

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And so far, I observe that every, every guy mentioned

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purpose, if you have a purpose, you can get out of addiction. If

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you have a purpose. If you serve the big picture, if you serve

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nature, or humanity, you can get out of depression. And I feel

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for you, like you've been such a strong activist here in Alberta,

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and so engaged and writing one book after the other, to inspire

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people and to wake people up and it gives people a purpose. It

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gives people a sense of living again, and that's what I said at

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the beginning of the show. The episode I was so disappointed to

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see that people don't really care about nature here, but

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through your books and through, yeah, me going outside and

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hiking, I need more and more people who care about Mother

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Nature, I would like to talk a little bit about your book

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because I feel that book is also about your observation like

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people are changing for the better people are realizing and

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waking up. And the stereotype of the oil and gas, redneck a Berta

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person is maybe still present. But there's a bigger group, a

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group of wildness protectors and nature friends out there that is

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growing bigger and bigger.

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I think, you know, it's interesting that I did write my,

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my latest book is really focused on that whole idea about

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creating a different, different story about what it is to be in

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Alberta and of Alberta. And really, that I did create that

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contrast between the stereotype The world has of us of the angry

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entitled redneck in a pickup truck, with a bumper sticker bow

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to tow or something like that, you know, I mean, that's the

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stereotype that the world has about us. And to some degree is

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the stereotype that we have about us, and certainly a

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stereotype that our fingers seems to have about us. And so

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again, you are what you say you are, you create these self

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fulfilling prophecies and, and and to see ourselves that way is

Unknown: 00:21:33

a very small way of seeing us and really limits our potential

Unknown: 00:21:37

limit limits our, our potential socially, ecologically and a

Unknown: 00:21:42

bunch of ways. Having said that, it is part of who we are, a lot

Unknown: 00:21:46

of us probably fit that category. But that's not all

Unknown: 00:21:49

that we are as individuals, either, you know, you know,

Unknown: 00:21:52

sometimes we're angry, sometimes we're frustrated by the fact

Unknown: 00:21:54

that we don't control our feet that, you know, jobs dried up on

Unknown: 00:21:57

us, and we've got responsibilities, I mean, all

Unknown: 00:21:59

those things are our issues that we have to deal with. But they

Unknown: 00:22:02

don't have to make us just one kind of person. You know,

Unknown: 00:22:08

personally, I find that if you take somebody fishing or hunting

Unknown: 00:22:13

or for a hike, it doesn't matter what they're going to have to

Unknown: 00:22:16

return to during that period of time, they are able to connect

Unknown: 00:22:21

with nature and connect with each other in different ways, in

Unknown: 00:22:24

more productive ways, in some ways, in ways that inspire

Unknown: 00:22:27

solutions to the problems are gonna go home to so yeah. When

Unknown: 00:22:33

you look at Alberta, holistically, we are a province

Unknown: 00:22:37

of great people of really connected people we've got,

Unknown: 00:22:40

we've got in spite of everything we threw at them, the history

Unknown: 00:22:45

threw at them, we've still got First Nations was very strong

Unknown: 00:22:48

cultures and very strong connections. And they are

Unknown: 00:22:50

engaging that with the rest of society in a way that maybe

Unknown: 00:22:54

wasn't even possible 20 years ago, because of all of the the

Unknown: 00:22:58

dysfunction on both sides of that equation. We have ranchers

Unknown: 00:23:03

and farmers that are now into the third and fourth generation

Unknown: 00:23:06

of figuring out how to live on the land. We've got urban people

Unknown: 00:23:09

that have determined that their cities are no longer good just

Unknown: 00:23:12

going to be, you know, warehouses for for human labor,

Unknown: 00:23:17

but actually actually going to be places to live and create and

Unknown: 00:23:20

thinking and we've made our cities into beautiful places. I

Unknown: 00:23:24

remember as a kid like the river valley in Calgary was just a

Unknown: 00:23:27

place where you dump the old sidewalks, and all the

Unknown: 00:23:29

industrial lots back down to the river. And that was really

Unknown: 00:23:32

started the job like you nobody saw that river front as being

Unknown: 00:23:37

any part of what was important to Calgary. What was important

Unknown: 00:23:40

to Calgary was to put our imprint on the land and get

Unknown: 00:23:43

rich. You know, I'm overstating it. But now you look around and

Unknown: 00:23:48

we've got these beautiful green ribbons of parkland. And they're

Unknown: 00:23:51

full of people out there connecting with the river with

Unknown: 00:23:53

their wildlife with one another. cities have become places of

Unknown: 00:23:58

being. So these are all things that are going on while we are

Unknown: 00:24:04

letting ourselves be limited by this myth that is just about

Unknown: 00:24:07

grabbing a bunch of money from underground and using it to buy

Unknown: 00:24:14

stuff. That's a very limited perspective. And it's a

Unknown: 00:24:20

perspective that keeps us separate from each other and

Unknown: 00:24:22

keeps us separate malana keeps us separate from the future

Unknown: 00:24:24

because the future unfortunately, for Alberta is

Unknown: 00:24:28

not an oil and gas future. You know, I can get all angry, angry

Unknown: 00:24:33

and indignant when you hear that but it is simply true. That's

Unknown: 00:24:35

where the world's going like it or not, don't shoot the

Unknown: 00:24:39

messenger. This is what's happening. So what does the

Unknown: 00:24:42

future involve? Don't worry, we've got the future all around

Unknown: 00:24:46

us. We need to just refocus and see it and then the end the

Unknown: 00:24:48

future is our environment is the are the are the people that are

Unknown: 00:24:53

committed to this place and and and creating the next economy

Unknown: 00:24:57

through through various lines of work that are Not just all oil

Unknown: 00:25:00

and gas. So that's the conversations we need to have.

Unknown: 00:25:04

You know, I've heard it said that I had an instructor once at

Unknown: 00:25:09

a management course they took saying, an organization is a

Unknown: 00:25:13

product of product of its conversations. And really a

Unknown: 00:25:17

culture is a product of conversations. That's what song

Unknown: 00:25:20

and music and drama and arts are about. They're basically our

Unknown: 00:25:25

conversations with ourselves, where we simply trying to push

Unknown: 00:25:29

me into them.

Unknown: 00:25:31

So if that's the case, then we need to have the right

Unknown: 00:25:34

conversations. Yeah, we need to have kontaveit conversations

Unknown: 00:25:40

that expand the landscape of possibilities, not the trinket.

Unknown: 00:25:45

And that's what I tried to do in my book is to say, here's a

Unknown: 00:25:47

whole bunch of different ways to see the place to admire the

Unknown: 00:25:50

place to be inspired by the place to see one another. And I

Unknown: 00:25:56

tried to stop sort of prescribing, prescribing, and

Unknown: 00:25:59

I'm saying, and therefore here's what we need to do. But to be

Unknown: 00:26:02

saying, let's have these broader conversations, and what we need

Unknown: 00:26:05

to do will emerge from them, but they will not emerge from a

Unknown: 00:26:08

narrow backward looking, willing gas will save us I get yet

Unknown: 00:26:12

again. And if it doesn't, it's somebody else's fault. Yeah,

Unknown: 00:26:16

that will not save us.

Unknown: 00:26:17

Yeah. No, and this is also something I keep repeating, with

Unknown: 00:26:23

my people on the show and my listeners that we have to become

Unknown: 00:26:26

more resilient. Like we are just, we're putting all our eggs

Unknown: 00:26:31

into one basket, and it's good to be committed to something.

Unknown: 00:26:35

But if something goes wrong, like Now, a couple of times,

Unknown: 00:26:40

hitting the recession, with oil and gas, we are thrown off. So

Unknown: 00:26:46

if we become more diverse, if we become more creative, maybe even

Unknown: 00:26:51

then there's less stress on nature, but also within

Unknown: 00:26:57

ourselves, because we know, okay, if one leg breaks off, we

Unknown: 00:27:01

have three other legs, and we're going to be we're going to be

Unknown: 00:27:03

fine.

Unknown: 00:27:04

Right, and of relying on each other again, and yet creating

Unknown: 00:27:09

communities that that support each other, and not the

Unknown: 00:27:13

individual person who makes the big money and then buys the big

Unknown: 00:27:17

house and the big truck. That's,

Unknown: 00:27:19

yeah, that's interesting. In that vein, it's easy to sort of,

Unknown: 00:27:28

you know, we talk about the Maslow's hierarchy of needs, you

Unknown: 00:27:31

know, that you know, that, you know, at the bottom, you just

Unknown: 00:27:34

need to have a house food. And when you don't have that, don't

Unknown: 00:27:38

talk to me about all this other airy fairy stuff, because that's

Unknown: 00:27:41

what matters to me, right. And that's true. That's, that really

Unknown: 00:27:45

is true. So so it can be really frustrating to have maybe a

Unknown: 00:27:48

conversation like this. When you know that your jobs in and next

Unknown: 00:27:52

month are ended last month, and you've got a mortgage, you got

Unknown: 00:27:54

kids that are in school, and the kids are stuck at home because

Unknown: 00:27:57

there's a pandemic and there's all these things going on,

Unknown: 00:27:59

right? Well, you know, it's at times like that it's impossible,

Unknown: 00:28:06

really, to imagine the solution and imagine that anything's

Unknown: 00:28:12

gonna get good again, you think about what it was like to be an

Unknown: 00:28:15

albertan in 1943, middle of the war, right? You just came out of

Unknown: 00:28:18

a depression. All the signs blew away. Everybody's poor. Now all

Unknown: 00:28:22

the men are overseas fighting, they're going to come back with

Unknown: 00:28:25

PTSD. Meantime, the women are trying to raise kids and keep

Unknown: 00:28:28

the economy going with the economy's just going dumping

Unknown: 00:28:30

money into the war. 1943 you look in the future, what do you

Unknown: 00:28:33

see, you see no hope at all, because everything around you

Unknown: 00:28:36

tells you there is no, in 1984, I was marched into a room with

Unknown: 00:28:41

another 30 or 40 people and told that all of our jobs ended in

Unknown: 00:28:46

coming March. We had a mortgage 16 and a half percent interest

Unknown: 00:28:51

rate. This was the 1980s the interest was other other

Unknown: 00:28:54

control. The housing market was dropping, we put every penny we

Unknown: 00:28:57

had into that house. My wife was pregnant. With our first kid, it

Unknown: 00:29:03

was bloody awful. Because all of a sudden, not only was I going

Unknown: 00:29:06

to be unemployed, but I was surrounded with other people

Unknown: 00:29:08

that would be unemployed. So was that gonna be one of those jobs?

Unknown: 00:29:10

Or were they and I was pretty young, right? It was about as

Unknown: 00:29:15

dark as it got. And now it's now 30. And 40 years later, I look

Unknown: 00:29:19

back and I say that was the best thing that ever happened to me.

Unknown: 00:29:23

It was sheer Hell, I remember the walking out of the lawyers

Unknown: 00:29:26

office broke, because we'd sold the house, signed the papers.

Unknown: 00:29:31

And now we are broke because we had to lose money on the host

Unknown: 00:29:33

and loaded. And I found a job but it was only three quarters

Unknown: 00:29:38

of the pay of the previous job. At least I found a job required

Unknown: 00:29:41

us to move. We had money for gas. So we could do that. And

Unknown: 00:29:46

that was it. It was like a total restart every assumption that

Unknown: 00:29:49

I'd ever had about my life. I'd been actually enrolled in

Unknown: 00:29:52

graduate school at the expense of my employer. It was looking

Unknown: 00:29:54

so good and then it just went the other way round. Right and

Unknown: 00:30:00

It's really actually, I would say, in our culture that's very

Unknown: 00:30:03

hard on a man in the culture I emerged from, because it really

Unknown: 00:30:08

was one of the words seen as your responsibility to support

Unknown: 00:30:12

the family and everything like that. And really, Gil was, at

Unknown: 00:30:16

that point, not going to be too employable, because she was

Unknown: 00:30:19

gonna have a baby, right. And that takes a certain amount of

Unknown: 00:30:22

time and focus. So, so that really weighs on you. And so

Unknown: 00:30:27

like I'm saying, you know, I'm just saying this sort of in

Unknown: 00:30:29

terms of what you were saying about the people that you that

Unknown: 00:30:32

you're speaking into with this podcast, at times like that, you

Unknown: 00:30:35

know, where's the future? what hope is there. And yeah, in

Unknown: 00:30:39

retrospect, looking back, that job almost saved me, I think it

Unknown: 00:30:43

got us out of Edmonton, which wasn't actually working for us

Unknown: 00:30:46

all that well, got me started on a new career path, which was

Unknown: 00:30:49

actually sustainable, took me into some really great jobs. And

Unknown: 00:30:53

then, as the years unfolded, enabled us to raise our children

Unknown: 00:30:58

back in nature, rather than in the city was a really good test

Unknown: 00:31:03

for Gil and he was one of those ones that sort of allowed us to

Unknown: 00:31:08

grow as a couple, you know, you get to grow your claps, right.

Unknown: 00:31:12

So, you know, it's the same thing with Alberta I mean, the

Unknown: 00:31:15

things that happen in our personal lives also happen in

Unknown: 00:31:17

our socialized in our cultural lives in our community lives.

Unknown: 00:31:22

And, and in the case of Alberta, right now, we're looking into a

Unknown: 00:31:24

future that's really not looking too promising, because

Unknown: 00:31:27

everything that we've always taken for granted isn't going to

Unknown: 00:31:30

be taken for granted anymore. But look at we've got more wind

Unknown: 00:31:34

than anybody else. In Canada, we've got more sun in southern

Unknown: 00:31:37

Alberta than anybody else in Canada, we've got all this

Unknown: 00:31:40

beautiful diversity, we've got the Rocky Mountains in the

Unknown: 00:31:44

foothills, the berries of the Northern forests, all these

Unknown: 00:31:46

things, we've got all the potential to be everything we

Unknown: 00:31:49

could possibly be. What we need is different compensations and a

Unknown: 00:31:53

different way of seeing ourselves. And that's really

Unknown: 00:31:56

like the answer that's very tried to go with wild roses are

Unknown: 00:31:58

worth it as I've tried to go with my previous books. I don't

Unknown: 00:32:02

know whether it's a big contribution or a small

Unknown: 00:32:06

contribution, but we all need to be trying to find the way to see

Unknown: 00:32:11

ourselves and see our place differently.

Unknown: 00:32:14

So that we can start to see possibilities differently that

Unknown: 00:32:17

may be elude us, until we get out of that little stove pipe

Unknown: 00:32:23

that we've locked ourselves thinking in about who we are and

Unknown: 00:32:26

where we are, and expanded a little bit.

Unknown: 00:32:29

So your latest book is about hope and and creating more

Unknown: 00:32:34

resilience, and making people aware of the resources we have.

Unknown: 00:32:41

And we just have to start using them responsibly. and reconnect

Unknown: 00:32:45

to nature. Did I understand that? Right?

Unknown: 00:32:48

I think so I thought the my latest book is, like I say,

Unknown: 00:32:53

well, roses are worth it, it's sort of rose on an earlier one

Unknown: 00:32:56

called our place which are collections of writing so so

Unknown: 00:32:59

they were never purpose written to be a book, they were

Unknown: 00:33:01

assembled to be a book, but when you put all these different

Unknown: 00:33:04

essays together, and so they you know, this can span like, you

Unknown: 00:33:07

know, 1520 years, but you put them together on little bundles,

Unknown: 00:33:12

and the the, the total becomes greater than the sum of the

Unknown: 00:33:16

parts, you know, because because they build on each other, and

Unknown: 00:33:19

they reinforce each other. And so there are ways of looking at

Unknown: 00:33:24

the nature of Alberta, right, like, like understanding and

Unknown: 00:33:27

seeing and being inspired by just the cool things that are

Unknown: 00:33:30

happening other than the way in which animals and plants and

Unknown: 00:33:33

seasons and cycles connect with each other. And they just the

Unknown: 00:33:38

miraculous stuff that comes out of that, like, I really do think

Unknown: 00:33:41

the world is absolutely full of magic. So it's basically saying,

Unknown: 00:33:46

so here's some of that. And then the other piece is just sort of

Unknown: 00:33:49

saying, here's some of the big issues that confound us. You

Unknown: 00:33:52

know, we've got issues around groundwater, we the issues

Unknown: 00:33:54

around oil and gas, got issues around creditors, and there's

Unknown: 00:33:58

their you know, so let's try and understand those issues a bit

Unknown: 00:34:02

better, so that we can maybe get to solutions that will work. And

Unknown: 00:34:06

then I think the other thread that turns up here is just

Unknown: 00:34:08

talking about great Albertans are some wonderful people that

Unknown: 00:34:11

they've got a big essay on Charlie Russell, who has changed

Unknown: 00:34:15

everything in terms of how in terms of what we think is

Unknown: 00:34:19

possible between us and bears. He's got a fascinating story. So

Unknown: 00:34:24

I told him, you know, so So there's all these pieces put

Unknown: 00:34:26

together.

Unknown: 00:34:27

Yeah, beautiful. Yeah, yeah. So when it comes to big decisions,

Unknown: 00:34:33

like there was a huge discussion of vaccines, and then now with

Unknown: 00:34:39

the residential schools, the horrifying news coming up. When

Unknown: 00:34:46

it comes to coal mining, when it comes to those big projects

Unknown: 00:34:50

where people say, Yeah, but it's going to create big jobs. It's

Unknown: 00:34:53

going to our community is going to flourish because so much

Unknown: 00:34:56

money is going to flow into our community.

Unknown: 00:34:59

You What would you

Unknown: 00:35:01

if you had fence sitters sitting in front of you who are still

Unknown: 00:35:07

undecided? What would you say to them? Well, I would say to them

Unknown: 00:35:14

a few things. They say three things, this won't be

Unknown: 00:35:22

easy to make sure. One of them is in terms of the economic

Unknown: 00:35:25

benefits from coal mining. It's interesting that the, you know,

Unknown: 00:35:28

the, the the communities that are most keen on new coal mines

Unknown: 00:35:34

are in the crow's nest pass in the hinten, area, grande cache

Unknown: 00:35:38

area. And these are areas with a history of coal mining. And one

Unknown: 00:35:42

of the reasons that they are so eager to see more coal mines is

Unknown: 00:35:45

because they are all economically stressed. And the

Unknown: 00:35:48

reason they're economic, these stresses, they built their local

Unknown: 00:35:52

economies around coal mining, and around the resource

Unknown: 00:35:55

industries that boom and bust as commodity cycles change in the

Unknown: 00:35:58

economy. So one of the things we know with coal mining is that it

Unknown: 00:36:02

creates a lot of money. And then, as soon as the price for

Unknown: 00:36:07

coal drops the gold global price, which we don't control

Unknown: 00:36:10

drops, the companies abandoned everybody, you know, they, they

Unknown: 00:36:16

groom us, they come into our communities before the coal

Unknown: 00:36:19

mines, and they groom us with money with trees with new golf

Unknown: 00:36:23

courses, new roads, new recreation centers, they do they

Unknown: 00:36:26

spend a lot of money upfront, to make us like them. They get

Unknown: 00:36:32

their approvals, they put in their minds, they send most of

Unknown: 00:36:34

their profits overseas. And as soon as the market dries up,

Unknown: 00:36:37

they walk away from us. And that's why these committees are

Unknown: 00:36:40

so desperate, they want another kick up that cat. But it's just

Unknown: 00:36:43

like Lucy, Lucy in the in the peanuts, cartoons with the

Unknown: 00:36:47

football. Every year, Lucy holds the football every year, Charlie

Unknown: 00:36:52

kicks it every year, Lucy pulls it away, how many times you want

Unknown: 00:36:55

to do that before you realize that you're chasing something

Unknown: 00:36:58

that's not going to work. So So don't tell me about economic

Unknown: 00:37:02

benefits. There are economic benefits to leaving the

Unknown: 00:37:04

mountains unmined. And those go to cattle ranchers that run

Unknown: 00:37:08

cattle out there, they go to Outfitters and guides and

Unknown: 00:37:11

tourism operators, they go to those of us who are trying to

Unknown: 00:37:14

make a living and other lines of work that just need to escape

Unknown: 00:37:17

once in a while into the mountains. That keeps us here

Unknown: 00:37:20

keeps us from giving up and moving somewhere else. There's

Unknown: 00:37:23

lots of economic benefits that come from the landscape. They

Unknown: 00:37:26

can come from, from it in the way of coal, they can come to it

Unknown: 00:37:30

to us in the way of water, wildlife and fish, cattle,

Unknown: 00:37:35

timber, there's lots of ways to sort of extract economic value.

Unknown: 00:37:38

The question you need to ask is what? When you extract this kind

Unknown: 00:37:43

of economic value? What are the consequences? Where does it take

Unknown: 00:37:46

us? coal is a dying market, the world is trying to move away

Unknown: 00:37:51

from it. Again, maybe you don't want to hear that. Maybe you're

Unknown: 00:37:54

going to roll roll your eyes and say that's stupid thinking.

Unknown: 00:37:58

Yeah, okay, fine. Don't shoot me for saying it. I'm just telling

Unknown: 00:38:03

you what the world's telling us. And guess what we market into

Unknown: 00:38:06

the world. So we need to pay attention to those messages. One

Unknown: 00:38:10

thing we do know is our need for water is not going away. And

Unknown: 00:38:13

bituminous coal is in the eastern slopes of the Rocky

Unknown: 00:38:16

Mountains, the foothills of the Rockies. And that's where all

Unknown: 00:38:19

our water comes from. So if it's a choice for our future between

Unknown: 00:38:23

water and coal, Think it through carefully because it is that

Unknown: 00:38:26

choice.

Unknown: 00:38:29

Very, very well said. Thank you so much for making the time and

Unknown: 00:38:34

yeah, sharing your thoughts here with us. I will make sure to put

Unknown: 00:38:39

your book in the show notes. And if people have questions, they

Unknown: 00:38:44

can contact you. You have probably like yeah, you have a

Unknown: 00:38:48

website or on Facebook.

Unknown: 00:38:50

I'm on Facebook and they've got you can always reach me at Kevin

Unknown: 00:38:56

dot bed. segamat G mail.com.

Unknown: 00:38:58

Yeah, yeah. No, that was very precious. And I'm excited to

Unknown: 00:39:03

publish this episode. Well, thank you very much for having

Unknown: 00:39:05

me. Yeah, thank you again for listening to my interview with

Unknown: 00:39:10

Kevin here. Don't hold back. If you have any questions reach out

Unknown: 00:39:14

to him, or to me is a big group out there. That is Yeah,

Unknown: 00:39:23

fighting the good fight to protect our precious waters, our

Unknown: 00:39:29

creeks and rivers and lakes. And I hope we were able to give you

Unknown: 00:39:34

hope and to raise awareness that we need to protect our

Unknown: 00:39:41

headwaters at all cost. Thank you for listening. And I will be