Op-Ed: Of Stuffed Grouse and Big Tents
October 3, 2022
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Wild Lands Advocate article by: Kevin Van Tighem
Click here for a pdf version of the article.
There is a sharp-tailed grouse on our cabin wall, balanced on a piece of driftwood, that stares at me through glassy eyes as if wondering why it’s still there. Or why I am? It’s been pondering the same questions ever since 1990 when the Alberta Wilderness Association held its 25th annual general meeting in Pincher Creek, Alberta. The AGM included, as usual, a silent auction.
I’d been a relatively passive member of the AWA since joining back when I was in university, but the environmental controversies of the day – massive boreal forest giveaways and pulp mill expansions, commercial over-development of the national parks and a dam on the Oldman River – had taken me from a mere consumer of the wild to a passionate defender of it.
