What follows here and in the weeks to come is the series of columns I have been writing for our island monthly, The First Edition. These begin shortly after I became the president of the Hornby Island Residents and Ratepayers Association (HIRRA) and are part of what I consider to be the last deployment of this incarnation. It reflects the deep desire I’ve had from even before Reb Zalman became my rebbe to be a practitioner of the Jewish spiritual path even more than a rabbi/teacher.
This column appeared in September of 2021.
What a summer this has been and continues to be!
As I write this in mid-August, the drought continues, gardens suffer and, as was expressed at the June HIRRA meeting, we are both excited by the return of so many visitors and uncertain of our abilities to welcome them. Many have also expressed concern over those who arrived without places to stay and camped in various places around the island leaving behind messes for us to clean up.
All this as more than 250 fires continue burning in the interior, in Manitoba and Ontario, in the American west, Greece and Siberia. Simultaneously there is flooding in China, western Europe, and Nebraska.
Clearly, we are now in the midst of the climate emergency, an emergency which we all share regardless of our world views and relative wealth. And, while we continue to work for, support, and vote for the parties which seem most likely to face this emergency head on, we also need to regain that Hornby awareness which led to the protection of so much of this island, the many and increasing efforts to grow food, the trend-setting of our Recycling Depot, and our sense of belonging to a single family made up of many diverse individuals.
Before I moved here full time, I remember speaking with the friend who first introduced us to Hornby back in the mid-70s. She said that on Hornby there is a conscious effort to bring together three disparate groups of people: the year-round residents, the owners of second homes who regularly spend time on the island, and the visitors who come for one or two weeks at a time. Her vision was exciting to me and made me anxious to finally get here to stay. However, over the past 16 years, I’ve noticed that we take this effort for granted and rarely talk about it. Instead, we have divided into camps which tend to define themselves in opposition to other camps.
I believe that it is time to renew this vision of melding these communities together. We need to collaboratively explore and actualize options for both the present and whatever future we are capable of imagining in this time of uncertainty. In and of itself, COVID is not the issue. Rather, it is the immediate challenge that brings into sharper relief the context in which it is spreading. We need to think about our current economy, with its heavy reliance on visitors, as well as whether what we have now can continue or will undergo a paradigm shift.
This collaborative and community wide process is not about a generational or class conflict, nor second home owners versus year-rounders, nor short term renters versus retirees and people who can work from home, nor being pro- or anti-business or visitors.
It is about the challenges that face us all: rising sea levels, water shortages, and extreme weather events. It’s about preparing for the possibility that the wealth on which tourism is based may not last and about how to live sustainably within the capacity of the island’s resources and how to prevent us from exceeding that capacity while remaining welcoming of people who need the Hornby experience for their own mental and physical well-being.
I decided to stand for president of HIRRA because I wanted to be part of meeting these challenges. I invite you all to participate by joining HIRRA if you haven’t already (it’s free!), coming to meetings to listen and to share, and helping make HIRRA what so many of us want it to be, a true resource and safe place for us all to consider and implement those practical options which emerge.
Daniel
The photo this time is of the false plum tree (no fruit) that is now flowering near the front door.