Bob Hunter

e@ strictly personal @

LIVING NEXT to mountains is something we take for
granted, but every once in a while | am reminded that
mighty peaks are spectacularly mysterious, as well as quietly

dangerous.

1 was up Indian Arm in my boat
one evening recently when we got
hit by a brief thunderstorm. A
crackling picxus of lightning broke
over the slopes around us, throw-
ing one side of the inlet into
brilliant silver relief, immensely
silhouetting the other.

It reminded me of those scenes
in movies where the switch is
thrown on to make the Frankens-
tein awaken.

I could have sworn for a few se-
conds there that the mountains
were stirring.

And, of course, they are, even if
they stir so slowly most of the time
that the senses don’t catch any
movement at all. In fact, quite the
reverse: a sense of immutability, of
fixedness.

Of all illusions, the illusion of
mountains being immovable is the
most cruel.

It may some day turn out that
the most interesting statistic about
Vancouver was that it was located
90 miles from Mount Baker, the
same distance Pompeii was from
Vesuvius.

If that big sucker ever blew,
things could heat up on the Lower
Mainland itself; depending on
which way the Java flow wanted to
go. We'd have'a lovely view of the
action, indeed, from the North
Shore. And‘with a bit of luck the
magma wouldn’t make it across
Burrard Jnlet.

What do I mean ‘if’? It’s just a
matter of time. Mount Baker is, in
fact, listed as one of 35 volcanoes
in the United States that stands on
the verge of a major eruption.

Wobody can pin it down much

Task force to

THE NORTH Shore Economic
Development Advisory Committee
will present its draft report to area
municipalities, chambers of com-
merce and native bands July 9.

Capping four months of work
by nearly 60 businesses and pro-
fessional leaders on the North
Shore, the committee’s four task

more than that. Baker last erupted
less than 300 years ago, and the
class of volcano it happens to
belong to is known to erupt on the
average every 200 years. So take it
from there, insurance adjustors.
The gigantic plume of dust from
Mount St. Helen, which we all
came to know so well through the
media back in the summer of 1980
— yes, it was that long ago
already! — was, in fact, a small-

‘scale affair, even though I still

believe I actually.heard it go off
this far north.

Vesuvius’ explosion, blowing in
AD 79, was nearly twice as big as
Mount St. Helen’s.

And even that was minor league
compared to the biggies like
Krakatoa, a little over a century
ago, which was 25 times as: power-
ful as the nuke that hit Hiroshima,
and the even-vaster explosion at
the nearby Indonesian island of
Tambora in 1815,

The ash from that one cut off
enough sunlight to chill much of
the world.

Since Mount St. Helen, we have
had the El Chicon volcano in Mex-
ico, which threw up 10 times as
much dust, shortening the summer
of 1982 in the northern hemi-
sphere, and the Guazapa volcano
in El Salvador the same year,
which matched the political mood
of upheaval in that war-torn Cen-
tral American country.

More sedately, the Hawaiian
Goddess of Fire, Madame Pele,
has continued to offer fireworks
displays at Kilauea Crater.

These little percolating
volcanoes amount to nothing more

present draft

forces are expected to put forth
recommendations on a number of
economic development initiatives
in the area, .
Representatives from North
Vancouver City, District and West
Vancouver, including planning
staff members, will attend the
workshop-cum-meeting to discuss
the committee’s recommendations.

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than pin-pricks in the skin of the
world, of course. if you apply a
postage stamp to a soccer ball, the
stamp represents the thickness of
the earth’s crust.

But it isn’t all sire coming from
within that mekes me a_ trifle
humble in the presence of the
mountains. That lightning I wat-
ched crackling above Indian Arm
was part of a planetary web of
electricity that concentrates over
the world’s higiiest mountain
ranges.

In North America, the Rockies
play a critical role in the balance of
weather patterns. The squalls that
blow across the inlet while the
lightning rages on high are a direct
result of tremendous .collisions of
air fronts against massive stone
ramparts, all of which combines to
generate electrical explosions.

As well, the Rockies .are the
principal geographical features
ultimately responsible for the
high-altitude wind paths that form
the spiral of currents shaping the
climate of the rest of the continent.

In the shadow of the slowly-
trembling mountains, huddled
against whiplashes of lightning,
crackling fire above and
pyroclastic (sic) fire below, we
dwell.

It’s not really the West Coast we
live on so much as the Western
Edge of the Rockies. Where the
waterline has reached at the mo-
ment doesn’t matter as much as
what happens when the mountains
begin to shake.

Never forget.

A few years ago George
Pudie, homeowner, became .\
fed-up with ‘paint-n-peel’ -

sundeck coverings. Then he
thought he'd try company, J (ZN

North Van District
attends city meeting

THE DISTRICT will go to the city
Monday, June 22 to attend a
public hearing addressing an
amendment to the official com-
munity plan which could pave the
way for a proposed $45-million
Park and Tilford shopping centre
and movie studio redevelopment
plan.

North Vancouver District Coun-
cil voted to reschedule its regular

June 22 meeting to commence at 9
p.m.

The latest response from the city
to a letter sent by the district ask-
ing for a meeting to discuss the
business impact and traffic
ramifications of the redevelopment
plan was, according to Mayor
Marilyn Baker,‘‘received and filed’’

“Council is going en masse to
the mecting,’' she said.

Ze NORBURN
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installed vinyl deck coat-

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And that’s when we

met George.

We sold him a Fiber-
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apply.

VANCOUVER
1306 BOUNDARY ROAD

294-8116

It still is.
Just ask George — he'll
be the one guy in your
neighbourhood taking
it easy this summer.
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RICHMOND
120-3471 No. 3 ROAD

273-3928