Salt Spring Island, British Columbia, Canada.
Country-bred people inevitably grow tired of city life and find themselves driven by a desperate need to get out and into the natural world again and away from all the noise, filth, and excess of humanity.
Elizabeth Nickson (pace Samuel Johnson) grew tired of London (if not of life) and, with a friend, purchased 30 forested acres on an Pacific Gulf island seven hours off Vancouver.
A large part of the island’s acreage was owned by a European investor who eventually sold her 2000 acre holdings to a logging company.
Salt Spring Island, you need to understand, is a Pacific Northwest version of Woodstock, NY, surrounded by water. The predominant population is composed of Trust Fund Bolsheviks of the most tree-hugging variety.
Their money was accumulated by earlier generations, and these kinds of people hate capitalism and economic activity generally. When that sort of thing threatens to mar their views, they become killers.
[A] young woman stood up at the back of the hall. She was tall, lithe, utterly beautiful, and looked at least part native, with long, dead-straight black hair, a weathered suede jacket that nonetheless draped gracefully on her frame, and a wide-brimmed, black felt hat with a band bejeweled in turquoise.
The loggers froze. The residents turned and craned their necks and, from the questioning murmur that arose, I guessed few knew who she was.
“Many people all over the world . . . ,” she paused and repeated herself, her voice clear and strong. “Many people all over the world treasure this place and hold it sacred. Here and now I warn you. If you do what you are planning to do, you will stir up opposition that will cost you hundreds of thousands, if not millions of dollars. People will come here from all over and camp in your forests—thousands of them—until you leave. You will suffer. Your shareholders will suffer. Your company will not recover. So I tell you again. Leave now.”
If you thought it impossible for predatory capitalists who clear-cut forests to turn pale, you’d be wrong.
The triumph of the crunchies went far beyond the rout of that timber company. It extended to island rule by a regime of enviro-nut fanatics bent on stopping less-enlightened (or less financially worry-free) property owners from doing anything they do not like. And they do not like CHANGE.
Sanctimony and self-entitlement constitute the perfect recipe for ruthless tyranny, as the unfortunate Elizabeth Nickson found out.
The larger point, though, is the Island Trust or Woodstock, NY regime of righteous tyranny is not remotely restricted to those little earthly paradises.
My vacation farm in Central Pennsylvania is located in a rural township long conspicuous for its low taxes and small government. No more. We had a big tax reassessment, and in 2008 our Supervisors adopted a boiler-plate Development Ordinance that would put the usual NIMBY urban suburb to shame. I’m in a spot myself very similar to hers.
OneGuy
I know nothing about Salt Spring Island except what you wrote here. But I can assure you that it will be logged and despoiled soon but probably not by Canadians but rather by the Chinese after WW III. Our problem is ignorance of history and short sighted thinking.
A funny but related story. I use only cash and in the last week I have found two silver dimes and two silver quarters in my change at Walmart. How does that relate you ask? Glad you asked. Someone, some older person tucked away some small silver coinage for old times sake. I live in a metropolitan area of 5 million people probably second to Florida in the percentage of retired people. We have a lot of homeless and useless people here as well. These people target the parks and homes of the retired when they travel to see their grandkids and steal what they can to sell for drugs. Most are young, too young to realize that they stole someone’s small cache of silver coins so they just spent it like it was our current printing press money. And THAT is what someone will do to all of the things Western countries spend trillions on to “preserve”. They will use it up and spit it out and not even a “thank you” for having saved it for them.
Don’t drill for oil, expand the Artic Refuge. No worries after the Chinese hoards invade they will need it, they will take it and despoil the land afterwards. Aren’t we all glad we saved it for them?
Now I feel stupid holding onto those coins. They are together worth about $10. I think I’ll cash them in and buy two drinks at The Legion.
rocdoctom
This is nothing new. Check out the Huron Mountain Club in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan. Old money here–it was founded in the 1880’s and is still an exclusive enclave. Locked gates and patrols keep out the riff-raff. Really good brook trout fishing but you have to be very, very careful. Don’t ask.
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