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.

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