Norh Shore News ‘““ACID RAIN takes longer to affect a large body of water,’’ my host explained. Thus, mighty Georgia Bay is still technically alive. The fishing is down, everyone agrees. ‘‘Overfished,”* the op- timists say. ‘Hardly anything for them to eat,’ the others say. And if there is little for them to eat, it is because the invisible plague from the sky, drifting up from the States, has started to eat away at the delicate chemical balance that allows a lake to live. lt is one thing to read that there are some 17,000 little lakes in Eastern Canada that are biologi- cally dead already because of acid rain. It is another entirely to discover that the reafly big bodies of water are starting to die (oo. As coincidence would have it, the water level of all the Great Lakes is down this year. As we sped across Georgian Bay ina boat, I could easily make out the water-mark from last year. There are cycles of high and low water, my host told me. So this in itself wouldn’:, be odd, except that there has been ‘a heat wave that started before winter was properly over, and an instinctive uneasiness stirs the hair on the back of the neck. ; News that the American wish to . divert water from the Great Lakes ; to replenish the dying Mississippi comes as No surprise to anyone here. The politics of water is a major issue in the East, with some people apparently passionate enough about the issue to be ready to go to war with the Yanks if they come for our water. The point is, how long will even our incredible water supplies be worth anything? Low levels on the lakes. Acid rain dving a slow-motion dissolve of the photoplankton upon which the fish ultimately depend for nourishment. Bad enough. Yet there is another shock in PTTL et ete wz and sinks and toilet. “*How is the water?’’ I ask. He hesitates. ‘‘Well, we deink bottled water.”’ Why? “The boats mostly. They’ve got chemical toilets, sure, but they still flush all their detergent into the lake.” The boats. Ah, yes. It seems the number of boats has increased exponentially in the last decade. The Yuppie generation went for boats in a big way. The result is that a cabin like this one, which was grandly Tr Eee ere he politics of water is a major issue in the East, with some people apparently passionate enough about the issue to be ready to go to war with the Yanks if they come for our water.”’ store. We get to our host's cabin on a small island and settle in to enjoy ourselves. Everything is properly rustic, pristine and natural. There is an osprey nest nearby. A beaver swims by every morn- ing and evening. There is a watersnake. We sce the occasional fish jumping. It is not as though the lake is ‘‘dead”’ yet. Merely that it is dying. The cabin’s owner proudly shows off the pump system that brings water up from the lake to the swirl-pool bathtub, the shower isolated 15 years ago, when it was bought, is now virtually parked alongside a watery superhighway. Toronto may be a hundred miles to the south, and the nearest gas dock and dry goods store five miles away, but we are surrounded by boats. The nearby bay is crowded at night with vessels, almost all of them power boats, tied up hull to hull at anchor or moored — il- legally, this being private property — to the shore. Several onboard stereos blast away until well after midnight. We SPECIAL OFFER are talking yahoos. In the morn- ing, the same lot get into a horn- honking contest to test cach other’s hangovers. During the day, Zodiacs and outboards buzz restlessly back and forth, in pursuit of the beaver, the water snake and the osprey, trying to get close for a look. Heading out in the speedboat, we go for a tour ourselves of the surrounding islands and inlets, edging out into the open maw of Georgian Bay itself. Here, at last, | can see the vast ragged foam-edged storm waters that caught the eye of painter Tom Thomson, who made this section of rock and pine where the Cana- dian Shield meets the Great Lake system possibly the most famous of this country’s natural settings. It is a wonderous view, and for a while I forget the ominous signs of a disintegrating nature. But when we stop to refuel, | notice the store has an entire wall piled high with bottled water. The label advises that the stuff is free of radioactive materials, PCBs, toxic wastes, pesticides, herbicides or any other contami- nants. It comes from inland spr- ings. So here we are, skimming across one-fifth of the world's remaining “fresh water’ supply, not drinking it because it is presumably exposed to all those substances, plus detergents and acid rain, and God knows what else. 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