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Page 2, News, Tuesday, June 18, 1991 Lumberjacks with one -item wardrobes About six months ago, I was due for an only too infrequent plunge into the carefree world of planned vacations. This time, I thought however, that it wouldn't be the same old thing. I would go somewhere and see new cultures and peoples, somewhere I could be enlightened and fascinated. I would-do and see unusual and unique things that would shine in my memory for years to come. So, 1 bought my Tilley clothes, packed my safari hat and my 'Lonely Planet's' travel books, boarded a plane and headed for sunny, tropical Florida. Ah, Florida. . . land of the palm and gator, apple of the Mexican Gulf and host of the grandpappy of the theme parks. . myself at an anonymous Ramada Inn on the outskirts of Orlando feverishly awaiting the morning when my conveniently available shuttlebus would whip me _ off to the _ the Disney/Epcot/MGM Studios complex for a thrilling day of waiting in impossibly long lines and shopping in overpriced tacky souvenir shops. I didn't mind though, I was here for the Americana cultural experience. I proudly marched through the main gate, paying with my five dollar discounted admission ticket (that I had obtained by spending six hours and 20 dollars in gas the night before visiting every bulk ticket discount store in greater Orlando). . Disney World! I soon found . After two days of gala displays, heart stopping rides and swell audience participation drama shows, I posed for an overpriced tourist photo under the portal of the famous Disney castle. With a life-sized Mickey Mouse on one side and some third rate actor whose name I forget on the left, I stood with a lump in my throat and tears in my eye and thought joyfully, "This is America". The next day I walked slowly around t h e international pavilions at the famous mp CO t eg ss ae Several countries had displayed the best of their traditional wares for the world to see. There were Bavarian lederhosen, Japanese kimonos and Moroccan galabeyas. As I neared the Canadian pavilion I wondered quietly about which traditional costume the tenders would greet me with. Would it be the rugged voyageurian sashed outfits, splendid Indian headdresses or the flashy turn-of-the-century Mounted Police fire red uniforms? I entered the souvenir shop of our great Floridian outpost and was approached by a cheery young woman dressed in a black & red plaid lumberjack jacket and a pair of work boots. "Welcome to Canada", she proclaimed with a smile, "What can I do for you?" Chris Reid The Treadmill At first I thought that she was simply another tourist with unfortunate fashion sense. But no! She was an official "Canadian" pavilion tender dressed in the required "traditional" costume. I stared at her in stunned silence. I was actually more surprised by the fact that she didn't address me by puckering her lips to one side and squeaking out in a Bob or Doug Mackenzie voice, "Geez, how's it goin', eh?" Aff eet. asking a few discreet questions, I learned that our "tenders" were not very pleased about the choice of the official traditional costume. Although these girls from Ottawa and Montreal still didn't know what a Voyageur was, they were instinctively put off by portraying a Canada whose history, traditions and frontiers were established by axe- welding bushmen with an affinity for plaid clothing. I'm not saying that one can't find Canadians dressed like that (I have an outfit myself as a matter of fact) but I do have trouble associating this particular dress with the founding and forging of a diverse, multicultural Canada. The biggest problem I have with it, however, is the thousands of poor, mislead Americans who will believe that we're a nation of lumberjacks with one-item wardrobes. Not many Americans even know where Canada is to begin with, and those that do routinely drive up here in the middle of July with their skis strapped to the roof of the car looking for snow. We hardly need to foster misconceptions of our image to our southern cousins. I was informed by the employees of the pavilion that their outfits were dictated to them by the highest order of Disney management (I was surprised to learn that Mulroney wasn't at fault in some way). They apparently wanted to portray each country with a dress style that would instantly be thought as indigenous by the zillions of tourists that visit the theme park each year. So, basically, the world gets to see'a hokey image of Canada established by an American perception of our country. (To be perfectly fair, however, the pavilion itself is beautifully done and the panoramic film on Canada does the country justice, but if you don't go inside, you'll miss it). I guess I could see Disney's point of view. I mean, whether we like it or not, the world (or Americans at least) probably does see us as a bunch of bush-whacking lumberjacks. And, as a great American theme park, Disney aims to entertain. This means giving the people what they want, even at the cost of reality. Continued on page 12 I For environmentalists zero means zero "Be very, very careful what you pray for this weekend, because you're probably going to get it." With those words, Thunder Bay environmentalist Bruce Hyer closed his speech to 85 "friends" at Lakehead University. The event was a unique gathering of all environmental activists around Lake Superior - 30 from the American side, the rest Canadian. Every major environmental group was represented - the Sierra Club, Greenpeace, the American Wildlife Federation, Pollution Probe - along side all the local activists from the grass roots groups. The conference made two major decisions - both of which will have profound effects on all of us - if Hyer's version of group's political clout is accurate. Number one on the environmental "wish list" for Lake Superior is "zero discharge." 18 months ago, Hyer convinced the IJC - the International Joint Commission, that oversees the health and welfare of the Great Lakes - to recommend the adoption of Lake Superior as a "role model" for zero discharge. Lake Superior is the cleanest of the Great Lakes - even though it receives every year 606 kilograms of PCBs, 92 kilograms of DDT, 72 kilograms of Benzopyrene, and 241 kilograms of lead. Over 90% of those toxic chemicals come through the atmosphere from pollution sources far away, with less than 10 per cent coming from direct localized discharges. "Farg discharoe" is a term that's been around since 1978, when it was written into the Great Lakes Water Quality Agreement between Canada and the United States, but it's never been fully implemented. Instead, governments have adopted the "pollution control" approach-looking at what comes out the end of effluent pipes and allowing pollution of persistent toxic chemicals to continue,as long as they're "diluted". A Prescription for Healthy Great Lakes, produced by the U.S. National Wildlife phasing out the use of chlorine bleach in our pulp and paper mills. Chlorine produces toxic by-products that are persistent - they don't break down. Insteac, wey build up in the food chain and eventually end up in humans. The conference heard chilling statistics from Andrew Gillman of Health and Welfare 'Canada pointing out that pregnant women, young children, native people and the elderly are susceptible to genetic changes and cancers from a ey Federation NORTHERN contaminated and the INSIGHTS fish from the Canadian Great Lakes. Institute for by Larry Sanders According to the Environmental Law and Policy says, "The dilution approach is myopic; while it may ensure that the discharges won't immediately kill fish near the end of the pipe, it fails to consider the long- term build-up of contaminants in the environment. "Zero Discharge", on the other hand, means that-zero. Paul Muldoon of Pollution Probe told the conference, "Zero Discharge" simply means that we have to stop looking at what comes out of the end of the pipe, move up the pipe into the industrial process, and ask a simple question: why are we using, why are we generating, and why are we releasing toxic chemicals into the environment? It has nothing to do with the end of the pipe. It has to do with the use of toxic chemicals." in northwestern Ontario, this 'ineatis: environmentalists at the conference, pulp and paper mills could make changes on their production process to replace chlorine with ozone and oxygen-based technologies, and enhance their long-term viability. Gordon Perks of Pollution Probe pointed out that in early June, "the German Ministry of the Environment announced that as part of its regulations on waste paper, as of July 1992, you will not be able to make paper in Germany with chlorine-bleached pulp. I hope the Canadian pulp and paper industry was paying attention when that happened." Perks held up a sheaf of various paper products, all produced in Europe without the use of chlorine- including the thin, strong, high-gloss, bright whee paper demanded pod The environmentalists plan to exercise their growing political clout by descending in great numbers on the upcoming biennial meeting of the IJC in Traverse City, Michigan in late September. That meeting, and others, will be used to lobby state, provincial and. federal officials to stop boasting of their "environmental friendliness" and actually implement the concept of "zero discharge" in Lake Superior. The second major decision of the conference was to set up an "adopt a shoreline program for all of Lake Superior. Local people will be asked to become the experts on a small section of shoreline in their backyard. Hyer, who proposed the program to the conference, says these local committees will "know what kind of spawning beds there are, what kinds of fish and wildlife, what kinds of rare plants there are, what the zoning is, who owns it, what the history is, what the opportunities are, and what the pollution. problems are." All the data collected by each local shoreline committee will be fed through a computer network, to develop a master data base on Lake Superior. According to Hyer, this will help overcome the "fractured jurisdictions" problem that compounds any effort at Great Lakes clean-up. Running through the conference as well was a call to soften everyone's political tactics. The environmentalists didn't leave the conference. bent on. ot _ Continued on page.12}