Sweet Juniper hits Detroit Decay

Only 24 hours to Camino, but I was listening to a Q podcast about Gordon Lightfoot that ended with an interview with Jim from Detroit. You have to visit his blog site: http://www.sweet-juniper.com/search/label/Detroit This guy is chronicling the life and death of Detroit.

Did you know that Detroit once had 2 million people living in it...Now it has 1 million....that's 1 million that just up and left! The effect on the infrastructure is unbelievable.

This guy...Jim, is a great amatuer photographer and you can click on any of his collections to see some amazing photos

http://www.flickr.com/photos/sweetjuniper/collections/72157600000131363/

...not all are of decay. and he obviously loves this town, but in particular check out the one on the Book Depository. Three stories of Books, sometimes 4 feet deep on the floor. Places where books have been burned and trees have sprouted out of the wreckage, and all in a beautiful gothic building,

http://www.flickr.com/photos/sweetjuniper/sets/72157603302647339/ The associated story is brilliant. Most of the books were dated from 1983, indicating just how recently this was thriving.

Hit this link http://www.sweet-juniper.com/2008/11/follow-up-jane-cooper-school.html...to see his return to the Neighbourhood around Jane Cooper School

The Pictures are absolutely startling to say the least. I never would have believed that Urban America had been reduced to this.

Partway through this link you can see two photos....an aerial photo from the 1960's showing the thriving neighbourhood. and another recent shot, showing some industrial development and mostly grass growing between an abandoned street plan.

Of course this all seems particularly relevant at this time, but this has been going on for 30 years! It's a great back-story which I encourage you to explore.

dave

Camino Bound

Only 6 days to go before heading off on the Camino.

I'm practicing my blog updating....Here's some info about our winter:

Whitegold Adventures Adds Value to Wells Winter Economy. 

I've always said...."Wells Guarantees Winter!" and more and more, that's becoming a focal point for people from warmer climes.  Whitegold Adventures has benefited from our developed relationship with the Cariboo Coast Chilcotin Tourism Association and Tourism BC for our unique Bowron Ski Tour, and the payback is benefiting lots of businesses in the community.  The CCCTA in particular, has really taken the lead in helping to put our town on the map, and they were pretty happy to sell our 4 day Bowron Ski Trip to the media crowd, and feed the information on to Tourism BC.  Tourism BC in turn has distributed this concept to as many media outlets as were interested.  The results have started to pour in.

Cheryl and I have been working hard over the years trying to build each of our businesses to its full potential, and although Outdoor Adventure sounds like the most glamourous part of the job, it's actually the most difficult.  It requires endless hours of planning, contacting, promoting, advertising, giving away, meeting, creating, spending, designing, package building, phoning, emailing, mixed with what seem like very occasional forays into the wilderness!  Many of the leads we lay down on paper and the web simply never materialize.  8 years ago I applied for the first permit under the new Bowron Management Plan to run commercial trips on the Bowron Lakes.   We're still the only permittee with a winter license, although we have not had the traffic to even run ski tours, except with friends, on some of the years. 

The Olympics must be good for something though, and the spin-off is that Tourism BC is promoting winter activities in rural BC with a vengence!  As a result, we've been written about in a variety of magazines and webzines, newspapers and other sources.  The crowning achievement for us was when we were featured in the Winter issue of Explore Magazine(Canadian Outdoor Adventure Magazine) as one of "Canada's 25 Coolest Adventures"

In addition, Wells is prominently featured in a 2010 Olympic website devoted to telling people and especially media, what else they can cover while they're in BC next winter.  It includes hotlinks to a variety of local businesses and a direct mention of the Bowron Ski Tour. http://www.destination2010.ca/content/finishedarticles/cariboo-chilcotin-winter

 Now all this doesn't mean much to the Bowron....The lakes in Winter demand a special kind of treatment, and, frankly, there's not a lot of room for trips on the calendar, and not a lot of people-room per trip.  My maximum group size is 6 with two additional guides, and although we did only two commercial trips this year, we can probably only fit a couple more in, to take the best advantage of snow, light and temperature.  However more people are independently visiting the Bowron too, so all this interest is also generating lots of inquiries to us about gear, timing, and other things, which we're happy to provide.  Because some of my guests stayed longer than one night at each end of their trip this season, and because some people came unguided by me, I know of at least 16 visitors who spent over 49 person nights(!) in the local hotels, motels, shops and restaurants, before and after their ski trips. Those stays are directly attribute-able to the coverage we(WG, CCCTA, and TBC) have been able to generate. That's a great feeling for such a small item!

Given the state of the economy, sometimes it feels like a miracle that anyone spends money on recreation, but this winter we got a great feeling, enormous positive feedback, and are excited about grabbing the Olympic Year and making it the best for Wells that we can!  In conclusion, this is also a thank-you/thumbs up to all the people who help directly and without even knowing it, by making the stay for these guests wonderful.  I received an email, from an Oregon client recently that re-iterated his thorough enjoyment of both our trip, and everyone they met while in Wells.  No higher compliment can be made for a positive attitude and a self-supporting town!

Cheryl Macarthy/Dave Jorgenson
The Bear's Paw Cafe/Frog on the Bog Gifts
Box 206, Wells, BC, V0K 2R0
Toll Free: 1-866-994-2345
http://www.thebearspaw.ca/
http://www.frogonthebog.ca/

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Coalition Politics

Well, I just got a flyer from our local MP asking what I thought about Steven Harper and whether he was the best man for the job right now.....This is what I told him.
Hello Mr. Dick Harris:
I recently recieved your flyer telling me that the Conservative party was "looking out for the future of Canadian workers" and asking me which of the 4 national party leaders "is on the right track with an action plan for our economy?" That's a little like asking who's driving the national political-car the best when there is only one steering wheel and Stephen Harper has it.

The PC Party made a big blunder last December. Although I can assure you that the Liberals Party is not MY party of choice, they led a democratic movement in December which your party completely mis-represented to the public. I was stunned that, despite the fact that a majority of democratically-elected representatives were willing to express non-confidence in your government, your party deliberately branded the process as an undemocratic movement. By direct words and insinuation the PCs implied that there was no place in Canadian democracy for coalition governments without you.

I'm sure you are aware that coalition democracies exist around the world and many of them include representatives from much more extremist organization that the Party Quebecois. In fact, Canada and the US are the strongest allies and supporters of Israel, one of the most radicalized democratic coalitions in the world(but still functioning and effective, despite its flaws.)

Therefore, your portrayal of the Liberal-led coalition as being fundamentally undemocratic was alarming to me, given that this right to re-organize parliment is enshrined in Canadian Democracy.

Stephen Harper has been shown, (by the economic developments since December) to have been wrong in his initial assessment of Canada's ability to weather the current economic storm by simply 'staying the course'. Without the so-called 'crisis' initiated by the opposition in December, most of the buffers currently in place would either not be in place or have arrived too late.

In answer to your question; "Who is on the right track?" Well...your party has the driver's seat, but is only there by fundamentally interfering with the democratic process and engaging in fear-mongering. In my opinion, neither of those tactics looks out for the future of Canadians.

Dave Jorgenson
Wells, BC