The final act
Dear Editor,
The play is a tragedy, a calamitous, tangled web of conservation and winter use.
The Winter User is standing in the dusty, dimly lit wings on the stage of the Jasper Multipurpose Hall, waiting for the Final Act. Shattered beyond words they are forced to say their final farewells to favourite ski haunts; Maligne, Tonquin and Poboktan...old, intriguing names that conjure up intrepid explorers and hardships. Back country skiing, old faithful ski trails, log huts, friendly mountains, beckoning valleys and snow-covered slopes will soon be but a painful, distant memory in JNP.
The heavy black curtain opens, the Final Act is about to commence. It is now our turn. The packed house is quiet, except for the odd sniff and cough. We step out from behind the wings on cue and walk with bowed heads toward the Sacrificial Caribou Altar on centre stage that has been draped in a Canadian flag.
Reluctantly, we lay down on the altar; lights dim, spot light shines down, mercilessly blinding...drum roll, deadly silence. We feel a searing, red hot heat. With a mighty, swift thrust; Parks Canada reaches into our chests and pulls out our hearts, still beating! Triumphant...holding it high above the stage, blood streaming down; the arm of preservation, the arm of conservation, the arm of Species at Risk. Proudly, defiantly, displaying to the audience, Canadians, the World that PC has done something to save the caribou.
The heavy, black curtain closes with finality, the house lights come on and the audience files solemnly out of the Jasper Multipurpose Hall feeling pretty good about themselves, nodding their heads and murmuring in consent that this time PC has really, about time, done something to save the caribou.
However, there was one fellow that was feeling somewhat odd, disconcerted about the whole scene that he had just witnessed. Something isn’t right. He pauses at the door; an intangible force compels him to turn around. He walks back to the stage, parts the curtain and stares with horror into the mutilated chest of the Winter User.
His gaze is drawn deep into the cavern where a heart used to beat... he witnesses doubt, betrayal, confusion, loss of lifetime memories, connections to family, friends, the Park, history obliterated. He is then hit with a shockwave that explodes out of the chest cavity...piercing shrapnel of ultimate sadness from all the Winter Users that have sacrificed their innocent, simplistic pleasure of snow travel.
His eyes widen, he peers closer and sees a caribou watching him from behind a forest of ribs. Curious brown eyes reflecting the incredible odds they are up against; a seemingly frail, unadaptable species trying to survive in a world of climate change, world economics and human recreational interests. An intricate, losing crusade that is so emotionally entwined with the Winter User. The man peering in blinks... the caribou has vanished from behind the forest of ribs.
The man is stunned, devastated, and aghast as realization, understanding floods in; he sinks down on the stage floor in despair, head in hands; weeps for all that is lost and laments if the Winter User’s sacrifice will make any difference in the caribou’s survival. A doomed, star crossed, shared love affair of snowy, open, frozen expanses, distant mountain peaks...deafening silence...solitude and peace.
The heavy, black curtain stays closed on The Final Act.
Loni Klettl
Jasper, AB
