Don't Throw Your Life Away - Battling Marine Debris from Alaska to Panama
- Thread starter Voyager3
- Start date
Voyager3
Active member
Thanks, whatever works right?
Reading about it is definitely a good option.
Never give up, never surrender
Allstone overland
Mr.Noob
love the idea and adventure !! keep it up good luck
Voyager3
Active member
Phew....so. I did clean up my gear, but I did not fill the hole back in. I gave the Jeep the first round of its showers, and getting it out of the wheels took some doing. Luckily, this contractor had a hot pressure washer to get the big stuff off. That machine there, in case you're wondering is what had to be deployed to yank the last guy that got stuck out there.
I was so tired I even considered driving that afternoon to Yellowknife. That would have been a mistake, too. So I caved and got a room in Fort Simpson. Shower, bath, shower....clogged drain. Sorry. Oh, and I even shaved.
Then the next day I continued my trip through the Northwest Territories. On roads. And the first thing of interest I found was a set of Waterfalls. The upper one first is called Coral Falls, which is just a short walk from the park entrance, and the second one under the bridge is Sambaa Deh.
I wonder what this photo means to the people who put that cross there...
And much later, because even leaving the next day I underestimated how far Yellowknife is from....well everything, we arrived at the Great Slave Lake, and into town.
It was after 9, the inside of the Jeep was still an absolute filthy wreck, and no one was going to stop me from getting another room. But they would try. Whole town is booked, one room left, exorbitant pet fee, don't normally take a visa debit without a $500 deposit, yadda yadda yadda. I just want a room please. Managed to get a better deal on the only room and we "accidentally" swiped on the card. Shower, bath, shower, sleep. Drain survived this time. I think I'm finally clean.
The next morning, one of the things on the agenda, make another pass on the Jeep to try to get it more clean. There are cool, fully enclosed heated car washes up here, maybe it gets cold around these parts.
I was so tired I even considered driving that afternoon to Yellowknife. That would have been a mistake, too. So I caved and got a room in Fort Simpson. Shower, bath, shower....clogged drain. Sorry. Oh, and I even shaved.
Then the next day I continued my trip through the Northwest Territories. On roads. And the first thing of interest I found was a set of Waterfalls. The upper one first is called Coral Falls, which is just a short walk from the park entrance, and the second one under the bridge is Sambaa Deh.
I wonder what this photo means to the people who put that cross there...
And much later, because even leaving the next day I underestimated how far Yellowknife is from....well everything, we arrived at the Great Slave Lake, and into town.
It was after 9, the inside of the Jeep was still an absolute filthy wreck, and no one was going to stop me from getting another room. But they would try. Whole town is booked, one room left, exorbitant pet fee, don't normally take a visa debit without a $500 deposit, yadda yadda yadda. I just want a room please. Managed to get a better deal on the only room and we "accidentally" swiped on the card. Shower, bath, shower, sleep. Drain survived this time. I think I'm finally clean.
The next morning, one of the things on the agenda, make another pass on the Jeep to try to get it more clean. There are cool, fully enclosed heated car washes up here, maybe it gets cold around these parts.
Voyager3
Active member
So one of the things I heard about in Yellowknife I wanted to do was see a diamond get cut and polished, but the place had cancelled that part of their tour for the next couple weeks. Oh well. You know what cheers me right back up? I hope you guessed food. A tremendous schnitzel courtesy of Elke's Table. Owned and operated by a real German lady. 14 minutes later, everything was gone.
And the other cool thing about Canada?
Alright, food break over. We have to talk about trash now. I've been saying that by and large, it's not so bad up here. I mean that in comparison to the hardest hit parts of Asia etc. We're not wading through it, our kids aren't swimming in it, we're not washing our clothes in it. But it's still reliably, pretty much everywhere in some quantity. We took a walk in an off leash area of town and of course, there's always something.
Nice yes? this dog thought his job was collecting squirrels.
And I wouldn't be surprised if you thought that up here in places that keep some of their natural beauty, residents would be compelled to do whatever they could to keep refuse out of the environment. However, it did end up being a place where people not just accidentally dropped a bottle cap, or carelessly left a beer can at a fire ring. It would in fact be somewhere where someone would deliberately bring things like a car battery to chuck down the hill.
Can't stand your fine china? Chuck it down a hill.
We're no longer talking about visitors on a scenic walk not realizing the corner of their granola bar wrapper flew away. This is systematic, and I think because for a long time, it was either not a big deal, or there actually was no real way to deal with it. That for people around here whether it was more common in years past, or still happens now, part of their day was to bring their big old cans to this lovely waterfront view, chuck them down the hill, and go home. Out of sight, out of mind, right?
Well, to an extent....yes. It brings me back to something I heard from people in Alaska. When you think of outdoorsy places with lovely scenery and caring people, places like I've lived in Colorado and Oregon, it seems like by and large, there's a push to be just a little bit eco-conscious about our consumption and garbage. It's not nearly enough as we all know, but the seeds of the idea are there. In Alaska even as recently as a few years ago it seems, there was a fairly prevalent attitude of "The land is just so vast, we can't really do that much damage to it." Is it less than ideal? Sure, and I think they knew that. The other thing, specifically about SE Alaska and it's pretty easy to draw similarities, if they didn't throw their trash on the ground in places that were "out of sight, out of mind" what else were they to do with it? In a lot of cases, the only solution would be shipping it out on a barge to the lower 48. When you don't have real trash services, it's difficult to keep up. I am happy to say though that Yellowknife today has a few pretty well utilized recycling centers for most types, papers, plastics, metal and glass. Now hopefully, these trends and attitudes will shift and even more remote places can have a way to deal with their garbage and recycling, or find ways to change consumption habits.
In the mean time, let me bring up a point specifically about plastics. When I was fresh out of the pit of despair and airing back up once off the beach, a pickup pulled over and asked if I needed anything. In talking, the story was explained and the trip in general. It turns out one of the men helped with plastic research and had just recently been asked to help collect soil samples from coastlines on the Arctic to study microplastics. So he took a trip to one of the northernmost communities on mainland Canada, but I'm sorry, I forget which one. He was interested to see what the Arctic had in store to study the tiny broken down bits of plastic we find everywhere. What he didn't expect was having to travel by ATV over a kilometer out of the tiny town to find an area where he could even get a proper soil sample that wasn't contaminated by macroplastics. Real size pieces. Forget about the little stuff, he had to go out of his way to even find areas not littered with new. Way up there away from everyone's thoughts, it's a problem. My hypothesis, almost everything now comes in some kind of plastic container, wrapper, box, bottle, carton, with lids and caps and everything that goes along with modern packaging. The makers of products are more than happy to sell products to the people in the far north, but once they have them and have used them.........there's no trash service. There's no community recycling. Like it or not, they have no choice. It seems like a symptom of being remote and fairly modern.
So we have a couple problems in play up here in the north so far. We have individual attitudes from visitors and locals alike for various reasons, and we have service and infrastructure problems for geographical reasons. It's been interesting.
And the other cool thing about Canada?
Alright, food break over. We have to talk about trash now. I've been saying that by and large, it's not so bad up here. I mean that in comparison to the hardest hit parts of Asia etc. We're not wading through it, our kids aren't swimming in it, we're not washing our clothes in it. But it's still reliably, pretty much everywhere in some quantity. We took a walk in an off leash area of town and of course, there's always something.
Nice yes? this dog thought his job was collecting squirrels.
And I wouldn't be surprised if you thought that up here in places that keep some of their natural beauty, residents would be compelled to do whatever they could to keep refuse out of the environment. However, it did end up being a place where people not just accidentally dropped a bottle cap, or carelessly left a beer can at a fire ring. It would in fact be somewhere where someone would deliberately bring things like a car battery to chuck down the hill.
Can't stand your fine china? Chuck it down a hill.
We're no longer talking about visitors on a scenic walk not realizing the corner of their granola bar wrapper flew away. This is systematic, and I think because for a long time, it was either not a big deal, or there actually was no real way to deal with it. That for people around here whether it was more common in years past, or still happens now, part of their day was to bring their big old cans to this lovely waterfront view, chuck them down the hill, and go home. Out of sight, out of mind, right?
Well, to an extent....yes. It brings me back to something I heard from people in Alaska. When you think of outdoorsy places with lovely scenery and caring people, places like I've lived in Colorado and Oregon, it seems like by and large, there's a push to be just a little bit eco-conscious about our consumption and garbage. It's not nearly enough as we all know, but the seeds of the idea are there. In Alaska even as recently as a few years ago it seems, there was a fairly prevalent attitude of "The land is just so vast, we can't really do that much damage to it." Is it less than ideal? Sure, and I think they knew that. The other thing, specifically about SE Alaska and it's pretty easy to draw similarities, if they didn't throw their trash on the ground in places that were "out of sight, out of mind" what else were they to do with it? In a lot of cases, the only solution would be shipping it out on a barge to the lower 48. When you don't have real trash services, it's difficult to keep up. I am happy to say though that Yellowknife today has a few pretty well utilized recycling centers for most types, papers, plastics, metal and glass. Now hopefully, these trends and attitudes will shift and even more remote places can have a way to deal with their garbage and recycling, or find ways to change consumption habits.
In the mean time, let me bring up a point specifically about plastics. When I was fresh out of the pit of despair and airing back up once off the beach, a pickup pulled over and asked if I needed anything. In talking, the story was explained and the trip in general. It turns out one of the men helped with plastic research and had just recently been asked to help collect soil samples from coastlines on the Arctic to study microplastics. So he took a trip to one of the northernmost communities on mainland Canada, but I'm sorry, I forget which one. He was interested to see what the Arctic had in store to study the tiny broken down bits of plastic we find everywhere. What he didn't expect was having to travel by ATV over a kilometer out of the tiny town to find an area where he could even get a proper soil sample that wasn't contaminated by macroplastics. Real size pieces. Forget about the little stuff, he had to go out of his way to even find areas not littered with new. Way up there away from everyone's thoughts, it's a problem. My hypothesis, almost everything now comes in some kind of plastic container, wrapper, box, bottle, carton, with lids and caps and everything that goes along with modern packaging. The makers of products are more than happy to sell products to the people in the far north, but once they have them and have used them.........there's no trash service. There's no community recycling. Like it or not, they have no choice. It seems like a symptom of being remote and fairly modern.
So we have a couple problems in play up here in the north so far. We have individual attitudes from visitors and locals alike for various reasons, and we have service and infrastructure problems for geographical reasons. It's been interesting.
You've hit it on the head - trash (and sewage) management is often a case of out of sight - out of mind. I can recall seeing such tin can "troves" in rural southern Ontario too, although that is now (mostly) a thing of the past. In the Arctic, it is doubly difficult, as the ground is frozen, rocky, or otherwise unsuitable to have a proper "waste management facility", plus everything grows that much slower that the decomposition process that would quickly cover and start to break down refuse just doesn't. I visited Pangnirtung on Baffin Island in the mid-1980s and the town dump was simply an open pile that was routinely swept back into place, as there wasn't much to cover it. When storms came down the fjord from inland, the dump got blown into the town, and the town got blown out to sea...
Again, thanks for highlighting this issue, and also for the great photos.
Cheers,
Andrew
Again, thanks for highlighting this issue, and also for the great photos.
Cheers,
Andrew
Voyager3
Active member
Thanks! Lots more to see and do, so more content coming soon!
I did, thanks for sharing!Content like that has been up for a while. We were formally announced at Expo East last year, and thanks to everyone who has contributed in some way via raffle tickets and drinks, and generally coming to do all that Expo has to offer, because it's through the Change Your World Fund, Expo, Conserventures, the Farland family, and all of you that Candida, Maggie, and I are able to do these things. I hope we're living up to the memory of Alistair.
Good points about the other Arctic issues. Maybe if I hadn't been delayed so long in leaving I would have gotten up there this season. Oh well, it's not like I don't have enough to work with already
I'm very interested to find how complex all the issues are. There is no really clear answer yet. I should keep going until I find one. I noticed at the mine at Kennecott, too. What they were done using was cast down the hill. It's certainly understandable why. Back in the teens, 20's and 30's, that far from anyone, and already an active mine, they weren't bothering anyone but themselves. It is all pretty much still there though. It's certainly harder to blow and wash away bits of rail and heavy equipment than soda bottles and red solo cups though.