Jack Layton Walked the Talk in Cranbrook

by Gerry Warner

Cranbrook Daily Townsman

After several days of saturation coverage, I admit the media outpouring over the untimely passing of Jack Layton gets to be a bit much even for an admirer like myself. But please permit me to add one more anecdote that illustrates the character of the former NDP leader and that incident took place right here in Cranbrook.

It happened in May during the spring election campaign when Layton was in town to give a boost to local NDP candidate Mark Shmigelsky. An informal news conference took place at Hot Shots, the popular java hangout on Victoria Street and a somewhat wan, even then, Layton was regaling the crowd with why they should support Shmigelsky and vote NDP.

Another reporter was covering the meeting and I was just there on the fringes of the crowd just out of interest and because I'd never met Layton before. And he was largely as I expected glib, congenial and articulate – the kind of guy you wouldn't mind bringing home for supper or having a beer with.

Comments and questions were flying back and forth when I suddenly saw a well-known Cranbrookian pull up to the window for his morning cup of Joe. I'd written about this character before because he pioneered a rather unique form of transportation in town. It was Bazil Dodgson, in his brand, new, red “Bazmobile,” a battery operated scooter that he bought at the local Medichair outlet that virtually gave him a new lease on life after he could no longer drive a regular gas guzzler.

So at this point, I called out, “Jack, Jack,” and rather rudely interrupted the conversation around the table. “You've got to see this. It's the future.” When Stephen Harper was here a few weeks later, I never would have dreamed of interrupting him like that, but something about Layton's easy-going, laid-back style removed the fear and indeed he turned and looked at the Bazmobile through the window and started asking questions about it despite my rudeness.

I felt relieved and, indeed, I took the chance because I was aware of Layton's politicking on behalf of bike trails early in his career when he was a councilor in Toronto. But that's not all because what really surprised me took place about a half-hour later. I was driving out of the Hot Shots parking lot when what do I see – Jack Layton by himself in the parking lot taking pictures of the Bazmobile. I can't remember if he had his cane with him or not, but I couldn't help thinking to myself that he really must take issues like transportation mobility seriously, especially when it came to seniors.

And now he's gone. Far too soon gone and most Canadians, regardless of what their politics are, would gladly acknowledge the country has lost a great man – and rarer still – a great man in politics. I think Prime Minister Harper recognized this when he graciously agreed to Layton having a state funeral, something usually reserved for dead prime ministers, governor generals, statesmen and the like.

Great is a word I don't normally throw around and I'm hesitant to apply it even to Jack Layton. But I have to admit his dying letter to Canadians had an eloquence that truly deserved to be called great, especially the last paragraph which is worth repeating:

“My friends, love is better than anger. Hope is better than fear. Optimism is better than despair. So let us be loving, hopeful and optimistic. And we'll change the world.”

That is one of the most evocative cri de coeurs I have ever heard in my life, a veritable mantra for building a better world and I don't care who said it because it transcends the often shabby world of politics and is an inspiration for all.

And that's why I think Jack Layton deserves the appellation “great.” He made us all a bit better and without him we're all just going to have to try a little harder.

– 30 –

Close encounters of the ursine kind

It's that moment on the trail that we all dread -- face to face with a big boar grizzly.But these damsels in distress had nothing to fear because look who was between them and 500 pounds of Ursus Arctos Horriblis. It could have been a close encounter of a nasty kind, but instead Mr.Grizzly decided there was a better huckleberry patch over the hill. Or was he afraid of the group's peerless leader?

Fortunately, we'll never know and no one is more grateful for that than the group's leader who thanks the Good Lord for his luck and will go to sleep tonight thinking about ways to avoid another experience like this in the future.

A lesson learned.

Defeated by the weather Gods

Sometimes you give it your best shot and it just doesn't work out. But hey, it's not the end of the world and it's all in the journey, right? Or as Jan Wenner said in Rolling Stone towards the end of the '60s: "What a long, strange trip it has been."
Ditto for what I've experienced here in remote Nepal for the past three weeks, culminating in my "assault," if you can call it that, on Everest Base Camp and Kala Patthar, a rocky ridge about 1,500 feet above Base Camp, which offers an awe-inspiring view of the world's highest mountain and other great Himalayan peaks like Lhotse, Nuptse and the lower, but ever so much sleeker, ice tower known as Ama Dablam (Mother and Child in the Tibetan language).
Damn! Or should that be "darn" in a family newspaper?
Whatever the case, I was able to defeat altitude sickness quite easily -- though above 15,000 feet, I started gasping for air at night. My legs were able to surmount the incredible ups and downs along the way -- up a 1,500-foot headwall, up and then down almost the same amount only to climb another. I managed to keep my upward focus while walking through an incredible rhododendron forest in dazzling bloom, monasteries like the one at Tengboche that must have been the inspiration for James Hilton's "Lost Horizon" with its fictional account of the mythical, utopian Shangri-La, and the Sherpa children coming home from school in their colourful and scrupulously clean school uniforms. What an inspiration for students here! But most of all the mountains.
Much like the Rockies, admittedly, but you've got to add 20,000 feet. And it's not just that they're so high. Many of them start in almost jungle conditions at their feet (Nepal is further south than Miami) and then they lunge themselves at the sky through conifer forests below and great spires of speckled granite above, ending in jagged, knife-edged ridges from which greats blocks of ice and snowy white cornices cling. Something like Fisher and the Steeples overlooking Cranbrook (Fisher in its shape has been called a miniature Everest). But don't forget to add that 20,000 feet! It's on such a grand scale that there were times I was literally rubbing my eyes and my ever-accommodating guide Gopal had to keep saying, "Mr. Sir, we have three hours to go today." But, if nothing else, I'm a slave to my camera and pictures had to be taken.
The first time I choked up was when we did a high ridge walk to a Buddhist stupa (shrine) festooned with multi-coloured prayer flags rippling in the always stiff breeze looking straight across at Ama Dablam, which towered over us like a giant Yeti with an ice wall that I couldn't even imagine climbing. It is considered a far more spectacular mountain than Everest itself and much more difficult to climb even though its "only" 22,000 feet. It was just too much. The last time I got that kind of rush of adrenalin was when I was in Zermatt 40 years ago and got my first look straight up from the youth hostel at the mighty Matterhorn looming over town.
What helped drive this almost spiritual experience was clear, sunny, almost cloudless skies on the way in. I was sunburned the first day and couldn't wear my shorts anymore but it was still cool at nights with the Sherpa farmers only beginning to plant their crops of potatoes, wheat and greens. But as we got further and higher up the Khumbu Valley the weather began to break down. Soon the Great Peaks disappeared and by the time we got to Lobuche at 16,200 feet the landscape was enveloped in dark,heavy clouds that seemed intent on making the mountains disappear. Gopal dragged me up the lateral moraine of the Great Khumbu Glacier that spills down from the Western Cwym of Everest itself; because it's a constantly moving river of giant seracs (ice blocks), it has killed almost as many climbers as Everest itself. From this vantage point at 16,400 feet, according to my GPS, I could see some of the tents at base camp about a four-hour walk away. That was as close as I got.
That night snow started spitting out of those malevolent clouds and we soon realized it wasn't meant to be. An early monsoon front was coming through and the forecast was for three more days of inauspicious weather. I don't know what Dan Mills would have done in this situation but if I can't take pics, especially in a place like this, it's an existential crisis.
We got up the next morning to a three-inch blanket of snow and visibility of about 200 feet. If you try hard enough in life, you can defeat a lot of things, but not the Weather Gods.
So we turned back. But am I disappointed? How can I be when I just went, unscathed, through one of the great experiences of my life. And I look forward to showing all of you the best of my pics when I put on a digital slide show for the Cranbrook Public Library this fall. See you there.
Gerry Warner emailed this report from Namche Bazaar, Nepal.