InFocus Magazine

Masters’ war years, spent working as a secretary for the Air Force in London, are etched in her memory.

“Never a day goes by that I don’t think about it. London was bombed regularly. All hell would break loose in the sky; there were planes, search lights, cannons, explosions… I remember thinking, if they’re not careful they’ll kill someone, and then realizing, oh yes, that’s what they’re trying to do!”

When she returned from the war in 1945, she was happy to be home—happy to be anywhere, alive, she says. Her war experience has stayed with her, not just as an intense dislike of fireworks, but mainly as an ongoing reminder to live each day fully.

“Many’s the time I’d be listening to those bombs, and thinking, if I get out of here alive, I’m gonna give it all I’ve got. Life is a one-way trip and I’m not going to goof it away,” she says.

Masters’ war memories have been a potent ingredient in one of her most beloved activities— naming lakes and mountains in Strathcona Provincial Park. “I’ve named over 50 features on the Island, at least 10 for the war dead,” she explains. “Imagine how meaningful it can be for the relatives, and they can take their kids in there so they realize that everything we have didn’t come easy.”

The naming of things is part of Masters’ life-long relationship with Vancouver Island. She fell in love with the mountains on a family camping trip to Forbidden Plateau when she was 13. Soon after, she got involved with the Comox District Mountaineering Club where she has been active for decades. When she wasn’t out on blockades saving the lakes, forests and mountains of her beloved bioregion, she’d often be out exploring them—hiking, skiing, canoeing, snowshoeing, trail-building, and guiding others into the backwoods.

A lake in Strathcona Park—“more a puddle,” she says, self-deprecatingly—is named Ruth Masters Lake in her honor.

Her love of nature may have blossomed in the mountains, but its roots are deeply planted in the property on Powerhouse Road. “It all comes from being here,” she says, banging her cane on the ground.

The property has been in the family since 1920, when Masters’ father, a WWI veteran, received 20 acres of “stumps and rocks” as part of the Soldier Settlement Scheme for returning soldiers. His goal was to turn it into a family homestead and working farm.

“My father dug out 85 huge first-growth stumps by hand, blasting, burning, tunnelling,” says Masters. The family had a few cows and a flock of chickens, but the soil wasn’t able to support a full-scale farm.

“We were poor—I like to say we were churchmouse poor. In fact, the mice in the church were a lot better off than the ones in our house.

“But you know there’s a benefit to being poor. You learn to make and do and fix. I remember cutting up an old bicycle tire to make new heels for my shoes. We had to walk to school and back each day,” she says.

Life may have been a struggle, but there was still time to connect with nature. Masters remembers her father sitting outside late at night in the middle of winter, after a hard day’s labor, with a telescope and a star map, spotting the constellations. He had an extensive knowledge of natural history and always had the patience to explain the natural world to his children.

Masters’ playground was the property, and the Puntledge River next door. She can’t really remember a time she did not love her home.

On the sunny September day I visit her, Masters is happy to share some of the property’s history as we walk through the forest.

“Over there was the barn,” she says, pointing to an opening covered in ferns and small trees. “And that was where the cows grazed,” she waves her arm in another direction. It looks nothing like a pasture; the forest is well on its way to growing back.

Masters’ goal has been to return the whole property to a natural state. She’s left the gardens and orchards to grow over, removed all traces of the buildings, and over the years has planted hundreds of trees and ferns, all rescued from areas being developed.

“See, there along the roadside, those are yellow cedars that came from when they were developing Mount Washington,” she says.

“And in there,” she gestures into a thicket of young trees and looks at me sideways “there was a house of ill repute. When I was a girl we called it the hoor house. Back then that bit belonged to the neighbors, but later we did some boundary alterations.”

And on she goes. With her words, what I see around me takes on new meaning. Where the trail borders the ridgetop of the precipitous slope down to the river, she shows me the marks left by the logging that took place 90 year ago. “See these dips in the ground, every 15 feet or so. That’s where they’d drag the logs and then send them over the edge down to the river.”

She shows me a special tree, a massive old fir, and insists I stand right next to its deeply-ridged, gnarled trunk, so I can look up at its crown and see the way its branches spread out like spokes on a wheel, way, way up where the sunlight is.

She stops to share her favorite view with me, the river curving away to the horizon below, the forest wrapped around us, the sky opening big above.

“And this is where the trilliums grow in the spring. You must come and see them! There are so many of them, and so big!”

She points out the spot where a hiker fell over the edge, landing way below with a broken pelvis. “Luckily for him there was a fisherman right at the bend there who came to his aid. It was a classic rescue job; they had to bring him up on ropes.”

She’s reading me the history, human and natural, of this piece of earth, this land that holds her past; land whose future she has so dramatically and decisively shaped.

She pauses to catch her breath, one hand on her cane and the other on a tree trunk, and looks straight at me. There’s an earnestness in the set of her eyes that suggests that, this time, she isn’t about to make a joke:

“This here—this land, preserving it—this is truly the height of my career. It’s the only important thing I’ve ever done.”

Plastic or paper? The correct answer is “Neither, salve thank you—I have my reusable bag with me.”

The “scourge” of plastic bags is an issue making headlines across the country and around the world. Just this past week four major retail associations in Canada pledged to work to reduce plastic bag use by 50% before 2013. But as industry and government scramble to mitigate the negative environmental impacts of disposable plastics and race to develop alternatives, steroids
some communities are taking the issue into their own hands. The Comox Valley is one such community.

The biggest problem with plastic bags is that unless they are picked up by wind, bulimics
water or wildlife, they don’t really go anywhere. Plastic bags can take up to 1,000 years to break down. When you think about how many of those plastic bags go to our landfill each week, then multiply that by the population of the Comox Valley and then by 52 weeks in a year, you begin to see the size of the problem. Magnify that by six billion—the population of the world—and it becomes unfathomable.

The upside of the plastics story is that both the Comox Valley Chamber of Commerce and the Comox Valley Regional District (CVRD) are launching campaigns in which the business community and the public can work together to make better choices— for a better future.

“The Chamber of Commerce Advocacy Committee set some exciting goals for this year. These goals include a focus on environmental sustainability and pro-active business leadership,” says Jeff Lucas, Chamber board member and Chair of the Comox Valley EnviroBag Project. “After much discussion we set our sights on a campaign to dramatically reduce and eventually eliminate single-use plastic bags in our community. To achieve this we needed to come up with a strategy to support business of all shapes and sizes in their ability to provide an affordable reusable option for their customers.”

To this end, the Chamber is brokering the one-time purchase of 75,000 recycled, re-usable bags, which are to be sold at cost to participating businesses in the Valley. Each participant—whether they are a multi-national corporation or sole trader—will pay the same price for these bags. Some can opt to personalize them with individual logos while others are working with the valley-wide branding offered by the Chamber. The launch date for these bags to appear in retail outlets is February, 2009.

“To date more that 45,000 bags have been ordered and the rate of participation is growing exponentially,” says Meaghan Cursons, who is working with the Chamber to bring this initiative to life. “This has caught on like wildfire because when it comes down to it, we see that the business community really wants to so the right thing! Too often the issues and the options related to waste reduction can seem overwhelming. That’s why we are focusing on a tangible and ‘doable’ step.”

The Chamber’s deadline to secure participants in the Comox Valley EnviroBag order is October 20. Retailers and client centred businesses or organizations can order any number of the uniquely designed Comox Valley EnviroBags and become part of a community-wide campaign to promote their use.

As part of this campaign the Chamber will work with the CVRD and others to spread the word to their members and to the public about the importance of the community working together to dramatically impact the number of single-use bags distributed and disposed of in the Valley.

Simultaneously, the Comox Valley Regional District is working on their own public education campaign—The Power of R; Rethink, Reuse, Recycle, Reduce. The annual Waste Reduction Week, running right across the nation from October19 to 25, focuses on waste management issues and providing the public with an understanding of choices available and how best to utilize them.

Their campaign will detail how we, the consumer, can cut down on real waste at the local landfill. “Solid waste generation in the CVRD Waste Management Area has increased 50 per cent over the past five years,” says Wendy Schebel, CVRD coordinator, operational education and events. “If it continues at this rate both of our landfill sites will be full by 2015.”

A landfill, Schebel explains, is an ecosystem in itself, and although there is very advanced technology available for their management, it is not all available here in the Comox Valley. “There are all sorts of risks in creating another landfill, so anything we can do to reduce our waste generation is very important. If we use items that are recyclable then everything can be put to better use,” says Schebel. “We can’t afford not to be good at rethinking, reducing, reusing and recycling.”

The CVRD is also engaging with the youth community in this educational process—both as students and teachers. A video competition for 8-12 year olds, which winds up on October 17, asks youngsters to submit a 60 second video clip as individuals or as a school class with their viewpoint on the Power of R—transit, water or nature issues. There are great prizes to be won, including a waste free lunch for an entire class.

Working toward a ‘greener’ Halloween, the CVRD has also purchased 1,000 reusable bags that will be given away with every purchase of a book of 10 tickets for a youth swim or skate at the Comox Valley Sports or Aquatic Centres. The tickets, valid until December 31, 2008, are $10 for a book and provide a healthy alternative to candy.

The CVRD has also pledged to purchase 5,000 of the Chamber’s Comox Valley EnviroBags, which they will distribute through various promotions next year.

And there is more good news for this initiative. Later this year The Home Depot is piloting their own scheme to ban single-use plastic bags in their stores; that’s quite a lot of bags from a corporation that has more than 2,000 outlets. That plan starts in just three branches, one of which is the Courtenay store.

Other local businesses have also already taken steps to reduce bag use. Seeds Natural Food Market in Cumberland has been 100 per cent single-use bag free since they opened. They are working with other Cumberland downtown retailers to participate in a group order. From liquor outlets to gift shops and from hardware stores to realtors—the Comox Valley business community is stepping up to the challenge.

There is a staggering amount of information available about the costs of single-use plastic bags—all of which leads to a clear conclusion. We must address our rate of consumption and start making better choices about the waste we make in order to ensure the health of our communities and the planet. The Comox Valley is known as one of the most beautiful places in the world and is seems only right that the residents of this community would want to help keep it that way—driving a citizen and business-led campaign that pre-empts legislation or a bag tax from our government

“That is why the Comox Valley Chamber of Commerce is focusing their energy on a business-led voluntary campaign,” says Lucas. “We hope to be catalysts for an important step in the way we think about single-use bags. It is not our goal to be long-term managers. This one time initiative aims to get the discussion going so that we can start to work together to make better choices and create a better future for our children and grandchildren.”

While many retailers now supply degradable or biodegradable bags, these bags still place pressures on our landfills and require certain conditions to break down properly. While paper may be a better option in terms of decomposition, paper bags still require energy to produce, not to mention the cutting down of trees for materials. A reusable bag, on the other hand, can be used again and again—and only needs to be used five times to make a positive impact on the environment.

Giving up the plastic bag is not a new idea and is already working in other communities and countries. In January this year Whole Foods Market, the world’s largest natural-food retailer, announced the end of plastic bag use at their checkouts in a total of 270 stores across North America and the UK. Around the same time China introduced a ban that stopped shop owners from giving out single-use bags. Similar bans have been introduced in Ireland, Scandinavia, Australia and several other countries. Awareness is clearly growing. In London, England, more than 30 municipalities are working to initiate a ban and the same process is happening in New York. San Francisco became the first US city to adopt a ban earlier this year.

Closer to home, similar voluntary bans are happening in Rossland and Whistler, BC thanks to the efforts of Tracey Saxby, an Australian who now calls BC her home. The village of Coles Bay in Tasmania, which attracts about 25,000 tourists every year, successfully banned bags in 2003.

Residents in Leaf Rapids, Manitoba became ‘Bag Free’ in April 2007 when the council there gave out more than 5,000 reusable bags to the 500 residents.

Easy for a small community to achieve, you might say, but if every single person in the community made some effort to give up on plastic bags, to say no thank you to plastic or paper, what a difference that could and would make to our Valley.

For more information about the Comox Valley Chamber of Commerce’s EnviroBag Project, or to place an order for bags, please email [email protected] or call 250-334-3234.

Bags are for sale for 82 cents each for the Comox Valley branded bags, in any quantity. Company logos and artwork can be added for an additional fee. Deadline to order EnviroBags is October 20, 2008.

For more information about the CVRD waste management initiatives visit www.comoxvalleyrd.ca.
People say adversity can either knock you down or make you stronger.  In local photographer Karen McKinnon’s case, erectile
it inspired her.  Two years after her stepdaughter Maggie Johnson, discount RX
then four, was diagnosed with leukemia, McKinnon founded A Fighting Spirit, a non-profit initiative that offers free professional photographic sessions to families with critically ill children.

McKinnon, who parents five children as well as running her own business, McKinnon Photography, doesn’t downplay the immense practical and emotional burdens she and her family have faced, but she’s got plenty to say about the gifts that accompany the challenges.

Dealing with illness as a family, she says, makes you grateful for every day you have together, grateful for all the help and support that keep on coming, grateful for the strength and resiliency of the human spirit—and out of that gratitude comes a natural desire to give back.

None of this, however, cancels out the difficulties.  “It’s impossible to imagine just how complicated life gets with a critically ill child.  Never mind the emotional stuff—the logistical stuff is overwhelming!  There are huge financial stresses.  You have so much you have to learn—about your child’s illness; about how to get the forms [for discounted travel] for BC Ferries; about making the appointments; about the health considerations the rest of the family now has to have; about how to work with the school system in a different way.  Meanwhile, one parent is probably busy applying for EI because they had to leave their job in order to be a caregiver.

“But what stood out for our family during this time is the support we received.  We were going to have to spend a lot of time in Vancouver for treatment—and we were handed the keys to an apartment there by YANA [You Are Not Alone, a Comox Valley organization that provides housing in Vancouver for the families of children needing medical treatment].

“I was so touched by being helped by YANA.  I was touched by the kids in the school who picked strawberries and brought them to our door.  I was touched by my clients who brought us food baskets.  And this wasn’t just impacting Maggie, but also her siblings.  They were overwhelmed by the kindness they were shown.  They asked us, ‘Why are people being so nice to us?’  One of the strongest things they are taking away from the experience of their sister having leukemia is the knowledge that people are good.

“So it was natural for me to think, what can we do to contribute to others?”

Maggie had been sick for about a year when McKinnon began to form the idea that blossomed into A Fighting Spirit.  McKinnon had, quite naturally, been photographing Maggie’s journey the whole time (she says photography is her passion, not just her business), and had made a slide show, set to music, using some of these images.

“I was blown away by how meaningful it was to have these images,” McKinnon says.  “What we’ve gone through has changed our family.  Looking at those photographs helped us all digest our experience.  When we look at them, we feel our strength—wow, we did that!  Maggie is so beautiful in all of them, no matter what treatment she is going through.

“And for Maggie, the photographs are something that she can look back on and share with her friends or her own children.”

Inspired by the power of photography, McKinnon began volunteering her photographic services to YANA.  She created a series of portraits of the children helped by YANA’s services, which the organization used to publicize its work.  “A lot of people have heard of YANA, but this helped to put a face on it.  People could see the pictures and say, ‘Oh I know that kid,’” says McKinnon.

Her experience with YANA only strengthened McKinnon’s desire to continue contributing through photography.  “I was really impacted by the kids I photographed, who had survived so many things adults haven’t had to face.”