CONTRIBUTION · 6th June 2011
Denise Manion
It was recently brought to my attention there was another informal dumping ground on the Kitsumkalum Reserve, on the path of the upcoming Salmon Run, where some people feel entitled to dispose of their old vehicles, appliances and household trash. As a band member, this really bothers me, so I drove to this informal dump and was so disgusted! I took some pictures, which are included. I also gathered some of the garbage that was strewn about. Obviously much of it had fallen out of one or more of these discarded vehicles. One of my fellow band members is guilty of the disposing of two vehicles, (that she's angrily admitted to), and there are others who are just as guilty as she. I think the only reason she owned up to it is because the garbage that I retrieved had her and her husband's names all over it. I highly doubt she or any others have taken responsibility for their mess and cleaned it up though.
There appears to be a tolerance for this kind of dumping ground. It is so sad and so disgusting that people would be ok with it. I think they are okay with it because others do it too, so why not? And yes, why not?. It's not like they are going to be held accountable for their actions. They will not have to pay or reimburse for the clean up of their mess and why is this? I confirmed with a band office administrator this morning that nothing can or will be done to those who contribute to this informal dump. Not even to the employee who allegedly helped transport some of these items to this "dump" with band equipment. I was told the elected council (or just the majority?) would not get involved with this. They have paid for the costs to clean it up once or twice before and nobody was held accountable for their contribution to this mess.
I understand there is a mob-like mentality to protect those who do dump here and I have faced it head on when I chose to speak out against this. So maybe this is why our elected council choose not to get involved and implement by-laws that will hold guilty parties responsible for illegally dumping, maybe they're afraid of the backlash? Maybe they just want the votes? If that is the case, are the majority of the Kitsumkalum band members supportive of this informal dump? If not, I'm not sure why they haven't voiced their concerns as well. Or, maybe they have and it just fell on deaf ears? Regardless, I strongly believe the elected council need to act to ensure this does not continually happen. It's disgusting to see people dumping their garbage so carelessly.
Hopefully Health Canada will get involved. Something needs to change for the better and obviously something needs to happen to get the ball rolling.
I guess we have varying definitions of what is right and wrong. My hope is the band holds them responsible and ensures they pay for their clean up. I am also a Kitsumkalum band member and not once have I felt entitled to create my own garbage dump. I recently disposed of my old car...thanks Bold Salvage for taking it! Could you imagine what the City of Terrace would have done to me had I just dumped it anywhere in town? Hopefully this won't happen again on the Kalum Reserve and hopefully the guilty parties will be held responsible. Fingers and toes crossed!
UPDATE
Comment by Denise Manion on 7th July 2011
I haven't taken any pictures, but the area in the pictures originally posted, and another area just down the road, both have been fully cleaned. There are old tires sitting there but those can be easily removed. Let's hope it stays this way. Kudos to the Kalum Council and Administrators for making the necessary arrangements to clean this up!
Thanks, Rudi for your disgust in garbage!
Comment by MaggieJo on 8th June 2011
Let's not attack one another, cuz the main draw to this article in the first place is that WE ALL are on the same page here - we're ALL disgusted with litter!
The clothing stores often sell hoodies/jeans with POCKETS in them! If you can't find a garbage along your walking route...put the garbage in your pocket until you DO find a bin!
There are TWO official dumpsites in Terrace. - The City of Terrace dumpsite and the Thornill one - both hosting hours that accommodate every one's shift schedules. Simple as that.
OH! And the City of Terrace ALSO hosts weekly garbage pickups at each household. Imagine that!
I have absolutely NO recollection of me EVER littering in my entire life. It's not even a challenge. It's soooo easy! Put garbage in your pockets and properly dispose of it when you get home. Contact the City of Terrace/Thornhill Dump(s) for operating hours and VOILA! Easy peasy!
If you have an item that is too big to dispose of...dispose of it properly!
It's only outta pure laziness that people create their own dumpsites. That's one thing that was never allowed to be said in my family..."You're Lazy!" Cuz, the word "Lazy" is to be reserved to those that truly are. And if one can't even bring their garbage to a funded site, just outta pure laziness? Then that's what those people are - LAZY! I would hate to have to share an employment situation with people of that regard.
I must agree with Rudi, that there is much dissapointment in our natural environment that is truly littered with garbage! There are many times that tourists come into the area and we, as citizens often pull them away from certain areas cuz we know there's alot of litter there and don't want to "tarnish" their image of the Terrace area while they are visiting us. Yeah....hard work to keep them away without telling them the truth of why we are doing so!
Let's all work together to make a difference in keeping this area as clean as possible. Not only for our visiting tourists....but for ourselves and our children so we can all enjoy the land together - litter free!
Re: Denise
Comment by Rudi Peters on 8th June 2011
I could not agree with you more. All they have to do is check the vin# and they will know to whom the car last belonged. This leaving of trash everywhere just drives me nuts, and I do not care if you are white, pink, yellow or poke-a-doted or came from the moon - pick up your trash, and that include cigarette butts.
A couple of years ago I took the kids and went to watch the catching and processing of eulachons in the Nass valley as I thought this would be an interesting thing to watch. I have not been back to that area as the amount of trash in the bush just about made me cry. Here was such a beautiful cultural thing that I am fairly sure people would pay to see, and yet it the experience was destroyed by having to walk past cedar trees that were several hundred years old surrounded by trash.
Reply for Rudi Peters
Comment by Denise Manion on 8th June 2011
Rudi, when you say, "I love hiking, and I have yet to hike through Kallum, Nass valley or any of the other 'traditional' territories were I do not find a rusting fridge next to a cedar tree that is several hundred years old, or an old couch", to me, you are implying First Nations people are guilty of dumping their "rusting fridges or old couches" there. I'm not implying that is the case at all. What I'm getting at is WHEN the "powers that be" on a reserve, or anywhere for that matter, know for sure WHO is dumping garbage where they shouldn't be, then the guilty parties should have to pay for the clean up. In this case, one band member's confirmed dumping two vehicles. I'm sure it wouldn't be that difficult to determine who dumped all of the other vehicles pictured. For all any of us know, the other unconfirmed people who've dumped here might not even be band members and they might not even be First Nations.
Today, I picked FIVE bags of garbage from the road behind Tempo. I have no idea whose garbage it was, whether it belonged to a band member or another First Nation. It could have been anyones as so many people do frequent the area. Had there been garbage with somebody's name ALL over it, as was the case with much of the garbage I found in the pictures above, then I guess we would know at least one or more identities of those who were littering in that area.
ALL Terricites!!
Comment by brian grant on 7th June 2011
Terricites & Thornhill Citizens...take a Look at the dump sites around Thornhill areas..as well...Beside LOMAK..those trails between that and Thornhill Secondary is Littered with Garbage and Peoples old Household trash..OLD fridges, tires, stoves....not only a First Nations problem...Terrace has Dumping spots every where...ALL LAZY!!
.. non natives as well...........go check Rosswood areas & cooper mountain areas ....and jack Pine flats ...:)
I'm here Jane.
Comment by Helmut Giesbrecht on 7th June 2011
I have been down enough back roads to know that no group has a monopoly on this kind of behaviour so I'm not even going to comment. Also I don't have the foggiest notion who RP is or who you are for that matter. If you are implying that I show the same disrespect for First Nation's culture as RP then you have mistakenly identified me with something you have been reading and I would challenge you to provide evidence. If not then leave me out of this discussion. Thanks.
Didn't Take Long
Comment by Jane Fregin
on 7th June 2011
When I first read this article the first thing that popped into my head is "Well it wont' take too long for RP to put his two cents in to slam the FN"
So I say thank you RP it is always nice to read your posts by the way where is your other friend HG?
The guy slammed on his brakes!
Comment by Merv Ritchie on 7th June 2011
I was a kid, I can only guess, likely 8 or 9 years old, when my brother threw a candy wrapper out the car window. The driver, I have no idea who it was, not my parents or a relative, hit the brakes so hard we almost pee'd ourselves.
He made him get out and walk back to pick it up. I have never forgotten and I never ever drop anything on the ground.
Guess he screwed me up for fitting it with the rest of the lot who drop their Tims cups and 'donalds bags all over hell's half acre.
Thanks MaggieJo for reminding me of this day, 45 years ago in Saskatoon. I can still see the street and the blue sky day in my minds eye. This type of behaviour of all adults could change the world.
I treasure the memory of that guy, even though I haven't a clue who he was.
Let's lead...
Comment by MaggieJo on 7th June 2011
Let's lead by example and do our best to teach the children in our midst to refrain from activity such as this.
A decade ago my family started pulling weekly "litter patrol" up/down our street, across the intersection to the bus stop. There was so much litter we had to lug a big garbage can on wheels and it was disgustingly FULL when we returned home!
Along the litter patrol route up/down our street, we educated the neighborhood kids/teenagers who often joined us along the way walking our dog for us so we could be handsfree to pick up litter. I would award them with congratulatory tokens for their assistance in the neighborhood litter patrol (they sure had fun using my garbage picker-upper claw - hee hee). Just last week a neighborhood child ran to me announcing with such pride in himself... "I NEVER litter!!!"
And now? Well, I honestly can't remember the last time I picked up litter on my street. The children in the neighborhood are filled with pride in their efforts to be litter free and to keep this Earth as healthy as possible.
Perhaps in the end...the children might end up being the ones teaching us.
It is not just here.
Comment by Rudi Peters on 7th June 2011
Denise I will grant you that their are many yards that could use a good cleaning, no argument there. The thing that gets me though is that FN usually have a portrayal of being these great caretakers of "mother earth". It is this hypocrisy that drives me nuts.
I love hiking, and I have yet to hike through Kallum, Nass valley or any of the other "traditional" territories were I do not find a rusting fridge next to a cedar tree that is several hundred years old, or an old couch.
There are some that do truly care about nature and t0 them I take my hat off too, but as an overall picture of being caretakers of mother earth, I just do not see it.
To Rudi Peters
Comment by Denise Manion on 7th June 2011
I appreciate you have your opinion and you are entitled to it, but that's just weak: "It is their culture of taking care of the earth, they are just giving back to earth that which they have taken from mother earth".
I am part First Nations and I know a lot of First Nations people. There is a minority who don't give a (and I quote you) "#%$,,,$ about the earth". The majority of us do. This particular mess that is featured here is not the normal "mess" that I think you're referring to when you say you've yet to see a clean reserve. For what it's worth, I see a lot of houses and yards off-reserve that could use a good cleaning too. Take a cruise around town, Thornhill, Queensway, Old Lakelse Lake Rd., Kalum Lake Dr. and see for yourself. It's not just on-reserve. The mess featured in this article is extraordinary, hence the reason it garners attention. It needs to be dealt with and those guilty of contributing to it need to pay for their callous actions.
Say it isn't so!
Comment by Rudi Peters on 7th June 2011
Why is everyone getting so excited about this. It is their culture of taking care of the earth, they are just giving back to earth that which they have taken from mother earth.
The biggest myth ever spread is that FN give a #%$,,,$ about the earth, I have yet to see a clean reserve, and you do not need to be rich to clean up your own stuff, you just need to give a dam.
AC
Comment by Denise Manion on 7th June 2011
"AC", it's not just one couple who are responsible for this mess, there's definately more people. I'm not sure if it's JUST band members who are dumping there, but it most likely is. If something like this happened off-reserve, how do you think the municipality would handle it? Turn a blind eye? Not likely. So why should a reserve be allowed to do this? I don't think anybody should. I don't care what nationality you are. Plain and simple!
Wow "us and them"
Comment by AC on 6th June 2011
How does the act of 1 couple make the entire FN population not worthy to honour our land?
Unbelievable... mind you I am not surprised. Steroetyping is also a learned behaviour. Do you just sit there and wait for our great press to publish something negative and pounce on it?
Try direct our anger to whom it belongs and leave the rest of us out of it!
http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/stereotyping
*Cultural Dictionary - stereotype definition:
A generalization, usually exaggerated or oversimplified and often offensive, that is used to describe or distinguish a group.
concerned citizen
Comment by WENDY on 6th June 2011
Good for you. More people have to stand up to those polluters who only care about themselves!
I wonder...
Comment by Michael on 6th June 2011
.. maybe everyone worried about Enbridge oil spills will come and help clean this mess up. I'm guessing they didn't drain the motor oil before dumping there cars.
hear! hear!
Comment by t on 6th June 2011
Good for you for finally saying something! How can FN people gain respect, credibility and rights for Traditional Lands when they treat it this way?? I remember growing up in one of the Village's and I am always dumbstruck that garbage is just thrown out windows etc. How can respect be won when we don't show respect for ourselves, our land, our homes...it is time to stop blaming and take responsibility. That will gain respect! 200 years ago we didn't live in filth - why is it okay now?
NO EXCUSES!
Comment by MaggieJo on 6th June 2011
Shame on people who create their own dumpsites! Especially those of First Nation descent, when the rest of us who lack in Environmental regard look up to them for direction on their repeated challenges to us "white folks" to Protect the Earth and Honor the Land!
If the First Nations aren't honoring the Land??? Oh, Man....we're screwed!
