What's In the potty?

On the national front:

Canada Cuts Kyoto Funding (ENN Sept.15.2006 — By the GLOBE Foundation of Canada)

The Government of Canada has pulled back from a $1.5 million pledge to the
United Nations Climate Change Secretariat to support the Clean Development
Mechanism (CDM). Canada’s contribution towards the administration of the scheme was to have been the largest of any country. The CDM is a system that allows industrialized nations to earn greenhouse gas emissions credits by investing in projects that reduce emissions in developing countries. Industrialized countries can then apply those credits in order to meet emissions targets set under the Kyoto Protocol. The general principle is that emissions reductions are cheaper and easier to achieve in developing countries, where simple investments in energy efficiency or alternative energy technology can yield large cuts. The CDM is recognition of the growing importance of developing nations such as India and China in the fight against climate change.

On the local scene (oh, just choose one! how about...):

Soaring assessments shock St. John's homeowners (CBC News
Sept.13.2006)

An upswing in the St. John's real estate market is hitting residents in
the pocketbook, with double-digit hikes in municipal tax assessments....[residents like Jack Wells saw hikes of 66% CBC reports...I can well believe that - in my neighbourhood, it's well over 70%!] "We're going to have to pay, we're on a fixed income and to us … we're amazed. We don't know what to do," said homeowner Jack Wells, a senior whose property value shot up from $69,000 to $115,000.

Meanwhile, our esteemed Mayor Andy Wells says he can't do anything about it, he knows nothing about the process of assessment "do you?" he asked CBC host Ted Blades, (although these assessors are not at all independent, as Andy would have us believe, but on contract with the City). Another tax grab - I guess that means council salaries will be going up again this year - why do we always have to be so cynical about Andy. I'm sure he's doing it in our best interests!

Indian Burying Place

A recent blogger thought I was being too 'verbose' and using grand words. Perhaps I should back up and tell you my academic background is in physical geography. And so I will continue to use terms such as erratics, pillow lavas, and other beauties of the landscape. But I'll also post something of the cultural landscape. Last month I had the opportunity to visit Indian Burying Place, an abandoned community on the isolated and exposed western shore of Notre Dame Bay in Newfoundland. You can read my article on same, and other resettled communities, in an upcoming issue of Kanawa (Canada's Paddling magazine).

Storm brewed poetry

Erosion: a sonata in c major

Ice.
The Isthmus joins the cut-off limbs of two ancient continents. Or rather one continent –Gondwana - with the oceanic floor of Iapetus. And when it’s not shrouded in fog, you can see two bays, one on either side of the Isthmus, crowding it with water, testing its rocky limits. The area is strewn with erratics, boulders that were plucked, carried and dropped by a retreating glacier, the erosive force of glacial ice. Now these erratics perch on rounded highlands, deep base notes grounding an ethereal landscape.

Waves.
From Chance Cove to Western Point at the bottom of Trinity Bay the coastline, a symphony in rock. On a quiet sea, kelp gardens below the cliffs sway a lullaby, cobbled beaches drip arpeggios, and sea caves belch in timpanic splendour. Narrow sea arches, steep and chiseled, sing arias if tuned in a northwesterly.

Wind.
Parabolic, sinuous, curved, blow-out.
Dry, harsh, parched, draining.
Burgeo Sandbanks, Gooseberry Cove, Windmill Bight. The changing tempo of wind keeps their sand dunes limber, the synergy of granular timbre. These prized spots of erosive excess.

copyright 2005 Alison Dyer
(first published in Newfoundland Quarterly, summer 2005)

Another remarkable summer in Newfoundland

Another remarkable summer in Newfoundland paddling the coastline.

This photo is taken on a hill above the resettled community of Port Anne, or Burnt Island, Placentia Bay.

You can find some of my upcoming articles in Kanawa (paddling to resettled communities) and the Newfoundland Quarterly (some thoughts on industrialization of Placentia Bay). On a different note, two of my short stories, 'Last Call' and 'Products of Erosion,' were published this summer in Grimm Magazine and The Nashwaak Review, respectively.

Back to sea kayaking. Paddled in St. Mary's Bay, Newfoundland on the weekend and met a wonderful elderly gentleman, Clarence Dalton (of the former community of John's Pond). Clarence provided this riddle for us to solve. Have fun, think hard!

Three parts of a cross
One circle all around
Two semi circles and one stroke down
A triangle stood on its feet
Two semi circles and one circle complete

best kind of a day

Alison Dyer
[writer/audio journalist]


Living at the junction of the icy Labrador current and the balmy gulf stream, I may have a little bit of a different take on life. In this blog I'll be talking about things that interest me: environmental health topics (such as pesticide use on crops and lawns and pthlates in toys and kids clothing); soundscapes of a changing world; kayaking the many bays of Newfoundland; the poetry of a coastline battered by storm waves and bathed in bioluminescence; the surge in Newfoundland literature; local issues like (non-appropriate) development in St. John's, Newfoundland's capital city.