Damn Yankees win again

By Gerry Warner
Cranbrook Daily Townsman
Feb. 12, 2010
Once again the Flathead River Valley has confounded the pundits, the experts and even those advocating for it, all of whom were clearly taken by surprise, by the announcement in the Throne speech Wednesday that no mining or mineral development will be allowed in the mostly pristine valley.
Let’s clear up the latter part of the foregoing sentence first. The Flathead is not wilderness. Repeat, not wilderness.
Yes, the Flathead is beautiful, scenic and spectacular and full of wildlife and fish including one of the densest concentrations of Grizzly bears on the continent which is all well and good. But hunters, fishermen and other recreationalists have been accessing the Flathead for almost 100 years. Logging trucks have rolled up and down the valley for at least 50 years. I‘m even told there was rum running in the Flathead during prohibition and the valley is criss-crossed with roads from mining and exploration crews.
Scenic and beautiful, yes. Wilderness no. That doesn’t mean the Flathead shouldn’t be protected, but let’s keep things in perspective.
What really led up to the Throne speech’s surprising announcement is a rather extraordinary tangle of politics, geo-politics, in fact, with our powerful friends south of the border playing the lead role. Oh, I know the section of the Flathead being talked about here is on Canadian soil, but when Uncle Sam wants something he generally gets it. Trivial matters like boundaries don’t deter him. Name the country of your choice.
In this case, of course, Uncle Sam wants the Flathead, all of it. The biggest part of the river is in Montana and one fork has even been dammed, but the part coming down from Canada is relatively pristine and the Americans want it.
Lest you think I’m getting a little histrionic here, cast your mind back 50 years or so when yours truly was a young lad growing up on the Columbia River near Castlegar. With the exception of the short section of the river south of Trail, the Columbia on the Canadian side of the border was as pristine as the Flathead is today. But the Americans wanted it so they could generate more power using water stored in Canada and irrigate the desert to grow subsidized crops.
They really wanted it, and of course, we gave it to them. We always do. Yes, we signed a treaty and we got some of the power as well, but we also flooded our land, displacing almost 3,000 people and putting some of the best agricultural and forestry land in the Kootenays under up to 40 feet of water. Most of the great farming and ranching grasslands south of Wardner were lost to the waters backed up by the Libby Dam and an incalculable amount of prime old growth timber disappeared under the Kinbasket Reservoir north of Golden and the best orchards outside of the Okanagan were drowned by the Keenlyside Dam at Castlegar.
Yes, yes . . . let bygones be bygones. I’m fine with that, but at a time when we’ve again caved to the Americans I think its sobering to consider this bit of history that happened not long ago but that most Kootenay residents seem to have conveniently forgotten.
I’m glad to see the Columbia Basin Trust doing good things in our community. It took over 30 years, but at least we’re finally getting some compensation for what we lost. And I don’t blame all the people that have been fighting for the Flathead -- American and Canadian alike -- for trying to preserve a valley that is still in relatively pristine condition. Lord knows, you can’t say that about the Columbia anymore. It’s now the most dammed river in the world. And who built most of those dams? I’ll let you guess.
Another thing to consider is that by caving into American pressure – from the likes of President Barack Obama and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton no less – and turning away from the as yet unknown mineral potential of the Flathead are we poor dumb Canucks going to get any compensation?
It took a long time to get it from the Columbia River Treaty, but we got it. Surely we deserve no less here?
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