Friends of Lanark Highlands Sponsor Paddle & Parade Party

Tim Wynne-Jones | Sep 20, 2023

Barbers Lake nestles prettily in the hills of the Lanark Highlands, serene, today, under a blue and cloudless sky. I’ve visited this lake for more than thirty years but I’ve never seen it from this vantage point, high on a bluff above the water, on the Anderson Heritage farm, open to the public today for a celebration of the lake and its environs. And, most importantly, its future.

Below at the launch site, a canopy is up and ready for Shabot Obaadjiwan First Nation Elder, Larry McDermott, to bless the paddlers. He brings greetings from Chief Doreen Davis, who is there as well. Then the Pikwakangan drummers from Golden Lake get down to beating out a ceremonial song about the web of life and the paddlers respond to that rhythm, that heartbeat -- digging in, moving out onto the water. Seventy-nine paddlers in all and of all ages, in a bright array of canoes and kayaks and paddle boards, while on the hilltop above and down by the water more or less the same number of spectators are gathered to cheer on friends and neighbours.

It’s about the most colourful war party you’re ever likely to encounter. The emphasis today, of course, is on the party; the war is held in abeyance for the time being, but by no means forgotten.

Thomas Cavanagh Construction Ltd has proposed a mineral aggregate pit, 87 acres in size, flanking Barbers Lake and decimating the rolling meadows and maple woodland along the Highland Line. They want to dig below the water line. Their plan is to take out a million tonnes a year. They want the pit open 24/7 so that, at maximum capacity, there will be upwards of a thousand trucks a day, coming and going from the pit, half of them loaded with tonnes of sand and gravel, the other half on their way back, hungry for more. The roads around here were never meant for such sustained industrial transportation.

The numbers seem preposterous. The whole scheme seems preposterous on a day like this, in this peaceful backwater of rural calm. The pit flies in the face of Lanark Highlands Township’s official plan as well as its zoning by-laws. It’s not what Lanark County’ seems to want in their Sustainable Communities Development Official Plan, either. “Attractions not Extractions” can be seen on t-shirts in the crowd. The locals aren’t about to let this pit happen without a fight. There’s too much at stake, socially and environmentally. And talk about mental health: just think for a moment about the back-up beeping of a thousand truck alarms!

But that’s not the worst of the problems. Uranium is, according to some highly credible analyses by Ontario’s foremost geoscientist. One of the hard-working organizers of today’s event brings home this point in an impassioned speech later in the day. “We want to ensure that the unique concentrations of uranium and thorium, lying underneath the desired sand hills you’ve seen today are not disturbed by aggregate extraction, and unleashed into our environment and water courses.”

But for now, for a while, there is only the lake and laughter, birdsong, drumming and a piper to lead everyone over to Wheeler’s Pancake House where there is food awaiting, snappy merchandise for sale, and rousing speeches to be made. Elder McDermott talks of the “Dish with One Spoon” Covenant, a wise piece of Canadian history I knew nothing about but want to know more. Mike Balkwill of the Reform Gravel Mining Coalition, on his “Rock Tour” to threatened communities around the province reminds us all that it’s going to be a long fight, but we are not alone. Then Sarah Harmer takes the stage. An eco-warrior herself, she sings “Escarpment Blues,” a bittersweet song about her eight-year battle spearheading the resistance to a quarry expansion on Mount Nemo near her own hometown of Burlington. Terry Tufts sings and plays with gusto about getting back to basics, living simply off the grid in “The Better Fight.” And the Long Sault Trio gets us to join in on the song “Highland Line,” written for the occasion about the creek of which they are the namesake, that is also threatened by the proposed pit.

The setting sun turns the towering maples golden. There’s fall in the air.

It’s a time for stacking firewood and putting down preserves. Preparing for the winter to come. And in the case of my wife and I, remembering why we moved here in the first place. It’s glorious country, not something you want scraped out from under your feet.