Herman Humpback was a happy whale. There were more of his kind. There were Hubert and Henry and Homer and Humperdinck swimming close by. He liked to surface to see the girl whales blowing. There was Helen and Helga and Hilda and Hermione and Hazel. They were all frolicking in the water that makes a clear, blue wedge from the Pacific Ocean into the Great Bear Basin.
He often saw the small creatures walking upright on two legs along the beach. He didn't know that they were the same kind of creatures in concrete canyons far away who were telling the world Herman and his friends had become so numerous they were no longer in danger of becoming extinct. He didn't know there were two-legged creatures in the concrete canyons who wanted to bring two big pipes carrying crude oil and condensate to the place called Kitimat. He didn't know the announcement that he had many more friends was cause for rejoicing. He didn't know it carried with it the unspoken message that, if he and some of his friends were smothered by crude oil from a fractured pipeline or a foundered oil tanker, it wouldn't matter because the spill could never kill all of his species. Those who died would, without their knowledge or consent, pay the price of progress.
Other animals knew nothing about what the creatures in the concrete canyons were planning. The bears thought they and their kind would always be able to come down to the water to fish. The caribou thought they would always be able to browse on the land. The mountain lions thought they would always eat hoary marmots and the marmots thought they would always eat mountain grasses. Animals avoid danger, if they can, but they can neither see nor understand the danger that is approaching.
The only ones who understand are the other two-legged land dwellers who are close at hand. These are the people who were here long before Europeans came to lay claim to the land called Canada. For centuries their necessities for living and for cultural belief and expression came from the sea and the river, the forests and the mountain meadows. The creatures in the concrete canyons take their necessities for living and cultural beliefs from endless progressions of electronic gimmicks and food in jars and cans and plastic bubbles. They think the First Nations people should follow their unhealthy example.
Long ago, the poet William Wordsworth said "little we see in nature that is ours." He was seeing with European eyes. People of the First Nations have a long tradition of seeing all of the natural world and of being a part of it. In British Columbia they have their own proposal for the export of refined, rather than crude, oil. Will the creatures in the concrete canyons listen to them? It seems unlikely. Canada has plummeted from a high place in the ranks of environmentally aware nations to a very low one. It could plummet even further.
When the first pipeline ruptures or the first tanker founders, I hope Herman Humpback and his friends are far along on their annual migration to Hawaii.
