Non-Festive Copper

Simons Department Store, Mississauga
Main Entrance With Christmas Decorations
[Photo By: KPA]

The Square One Mall is slowly getting its X-Mas decorations up. So far, there is plenty of gold and yellow and red and green.

But there is a trend in dark copper.

I've never seen a full-on copper only decoration. Even when mixed with other metallic colors, it is usually very subdued (and minimal), and with a tint of gold rather than the red I'm seeing.

Here's someone who purposefully decorated in copper, but toned it down wth gold and silver.


Why the dark copper in Simons' display window? And notice the burgundy background, and the mannequins in non-festive drab metal grey, lusterless white, and black.

The contemporary world started off by denouncing Christmas ("holiday" became the go-to word). But now Christmas is back.You cannot change the calendar. December 25 is still Christmas. But what contemporary culture has done is to remove as much of the religious and christian celebration that surrounds Christmas to make it into another event, another "holiday," on the calendar.

And who can refuse a glass of eggnog, or a twinkling Christmas tree, or carols about snow and sleighs (or even baby Jesus)?

But the importance of Christmas is still viscerally felt, and it is palpable wherever we go. Christ doesn't disappear by a wave of a wand (or the ordinance of City Hall). We will feel his presence even if the mall decides to give us dark copper instead of shining gold.

And besides, not ALL the mall is doom and gloom. There are still plenty of places to get the spirit of the holiday. And a beautiful carol does sneak through the censors and programmers, and we can hear "It Came Upon a Midnight Clear" on the speakers, which we can hum to as we go through shops drinking a Starbucks eggnog latte.

It came upon a midnight clear,
That glorious song of old,
From angels bending near the earth,
To touch their harps of gold:
“Peace on the earth, goodwill to men,
From heaven’s all-gracious King.”
The world in solemn stillness lay,
To hear the angels sing.

Still through the cloven skies they come,
With peaceful wings unfurled,
And still their heavenly music floats
O’er all the weary world;
Above its sad and lowly plains,
They bend on hovering wing,
And ever o’er its Babel sounds
The blessèd angels sing.

Yet with the woes of sin and strife
The world has suffered long;
Beneath the angel-strain have rolled
Two thousand years of wrong;
And man, at war with man, hears not
The love-song which they bring;
O hush the noise, ye men of strife,
And hear the angels sing.

And ye, beneath life’s crushing load,
Whose forms are bending low,
Who toil along the climbing way
With painful steps and slow,
Look now! for glad and golden hours
come swiftly on the wing.
O rest beside the weary road,
And hear the angels sing!

For lo!, the days are hastening on,
By prophet bards foretold,
When with the ever-circling years
Comes round the age of gold
When peace shall over all the earth
Its ancient splendors fling,
And the whole world give back the song
Which now the angels sing.

Multicultural Lesbian Promotion

Multicultural Lesbian Promotion
Square One Mall Mississauga
[Photo By: KPA]

The board reads:

BONLOOK
Fashionable Eyewear
Opening in August
Hiring Now
squareonejobs@bonlook.com
BONLOOK.COM

Forest Heritage: Stewards of the Land

Image Source: Ontario Forest Industries Association

The Ontario Forest Industries Association asks this on its website:

When will Ontario harvest its last tree?

And answers:

Never.

More from the website:

As stewards of Ontario’s forests, OFIA’s members are committed to the sustainable, responsible use of this amazing resource. Close to 90% of Ontario’s forests are publicly owned and known as Crown lands. 44% of these Crown lands are managed forests. By sustainably using less than one percent of our Crown trees annually, Ontario’s forest sector is able to generate real prosperity and support over 170,000 families across the province. That is a very awesome return on a renewable crop.

Sustainable forest management is a way of using and caring for forests in order to maintain environmental, social and economic values over time. According to the Minister of Natural Resources and Forestry (MNRF), sustainable forest management helps Ontario’s forests:

Remain healthy and productive.
Support a strong forest industry and provide people with jobs and forest products.
Conserve biodiversity, enhance or protect wildlife habitat, watersheds, and other values, and help adapt and mitigate to climate change.
Support Ontario communities, provide recreational opportunities, and provide a healthy living environment.

Steve Paiken of Television Ontario had a panel on "The North" last night, where the main topic of the agenda was the forestry legacy of northern Ontario.

The panelists all agreed that the Ontario forests were abundant and healthy for the most part. But "stewardship" is necessary to maintain these forests.

TVO says this about the topic:

The people who cut down trees and turn that wood into the items we use every day have an expression: "forestry builds communities." The Agenda discusses Ontario's forest industry with panel representing Ontario's 170,000 people whose livelihoods depend on a thriving forestry sector.

Marking shows location of McRae Lumber Company, near Algonquin Provincial Park


Jamie McRae (Left) and his uncle John McCrae

In the early 1900s, John Duncan McRae, the son of Scottish immigrants, was the first family member to be involved in the forest industry. Today, one of his great, great grandsons is following in his footsteps and the footsteps of three other generations of McRaes that have made their living from the forest. Jamie McRae, who is in his early 30s, says he basically “grew up in the business” with his father Robert and his uncle, another John McRae, passing on the 30 years of knowledge and experience they have each acquired during their shared leadership role at McRae Lumber.

“It all started when my great, great grandfather operated a sawmill, a grist mill, and a power utility on the Bonnechere River in Eganville, Ontario,” Jamie says. “He used the river water for power until a major fire in 1911 destroyed half the town, including the power utility.”

It was John Duncan’s son and Jamie’s great grandfather, John Stanley Lothian (JSL) McRae, who continued the family tradition, making the 80-kilometre trek west from Eganville to the southern reaches of Algonquin Park, near Whitney. He started out as a jobber, cutting pine for the Mickle & Dyment Lumber Co., but when the pine started to run short, he bought the Mickle & Dyment mill and began to cut and saw hardwood. [Source: Family Ties, Wood Business, 2009]

Steve Paiken asks Jamie Mcrae on the panel, who is fifth generation in his family forestry business, McRae Lumber Company near Algonquin Park:

Paiken: What's a change in policy that you would love to see?

MCrae: What we're hopping for in forestry is that we see a general shift n the way that policy is applied to the industry...Maybe we're not known as widely as some of the sectors in southern Ontario. There's a chance that we're not as top of mind.

Paiken: Can you give me an example of one regulation that you think is ridiculous and they ought to cut it out.

MCrae: Well there s a lot of talk with harmonizing different..Endangered Species Act with the Crown force its Sustainability Act...

Paiken: Can I cut to the chase on that? That means that the folks at Queens Park are more worried about baby elk than about your livelihood.

MCrae: Well, don't forget we're worried about the species too. Because, as one of the things I always to point out is the fact that we've been in forestry for a long time, we all have. We've been here for generations all of us, and we're still dong a good job on the landscape. We're stewards of the land, that's what we like to say. We're the people you want looking out for the species. We live n the forest. We live right beside where we harvest. We live there full-time. So I think that we're generally pretty good stewards of the land. And I think that sometimes that's a little bit forgotten at Queen's Park.

Below is the video of the 1/2 hour panel discussion:






Riverwood Conservancy, with the Credit River, June 2016
Photo By: [KPA]