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Spring's regenerative powers tested

Spring forward. Yeah, I know. We did that a couple of weeks ago, plunging ourselves back into morning darkness to save a bit of electricity later in the day. I'm referring more to springing forward into spring, the season.
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Spring forward. Yeah, I know. We did that a couple of weeks ago, plunging ourselves back into morning darkness to save a bit of electricity later in the day. I'm referring more to springing forward into spring, the season. There is - or perhaps more accurately, always has been - salvation in spring, born out of the sense of renewal that accompanies the season of hope.

For much of my life, when I lived in the temperate climes of the U.S. southwest, spring was the gentlest of seasons. It started mildly in early February and lingered well into May, at which point it gave way to the next season, known locally as Stinkin' Hot.

When I moved to Montreal, spring seemed to arrive in February as well. Unfortunately it only lasted about three days, generally over a weekend. The fabled February thaw would melt mountains of snow. Downtown intersections would become giant, flavourless Slurpees as old newspapers and the excrement of three quarters of a million dogs plugged sewer grates like so much hair at the bottom of a huge shower.

By the time Monday rolled around, spring-like conditions were nowhere to be found, having been replaced by an Arctic front and -40 temperatures. No longer needing waders to traverse intersections, you needed ice skates or crampons instead as they froze solid from curb to curb. Tow trucks and body shops counted on this seasonal perversion to see them through to the summer vacation demolition derby, still many long months away.

But there is no parallel to spring in Whistler. Spring in Whistler means you can ski powder one day and be mosquito food the next. While it seems impossible to comprehend we're just a few short weeks away from shuttering Whistler Mountain - and while we're on that subject, note to management: as useful as the Peak 2 Peak is, if it means you're going to shut down Whistler first each season let's just blow the damn thing up - the signs of spring are everywhere.

Birds, other than those with antifreeze for blood, are returning, more each day. The valley's lakes have iced off in what must be close to record breaking time. At the north end of Alta Lake they're fighting it out for the best nesting sites, cutting deals, establishing their pecking order. The Canada Geese have built a colony on the west side of the marsh, very posh, and have erected a gate to keep the Mallards and other riff raff on the other side. The Mallards, Mergansers and Goldeneyes have, in turn, infuriated the geese by refusing to recognize the sanctity of their gate, actually scooting through it on occasion, resulting in much honking and wing flapping by the geese.

Flowing out of the lake, the River of Golden Dreams is high and cold, looking more like the Swamp of Golden Dreams at some meanders along the way. Lined with growing sprouts of Whistler's official vegetable - Skunk Cabbage - the river's just barely low enough for booze cruising in a canoe and not getting stuck under the bridges.

I'm guessing stuck is just a matter of time. With snow coming down relentlessly and temperatures hanging around melt-on-contact in the valley, creeks are torrents and Zippy the Dog is conflicted over the return of open water, a happy thing, and the retreat of snow, a very sad thing for a hot-blooded Lab.

Spring in Whistler is an important time. For those of us who live here and all of us who have only lived here since the start of the ski season, it's the first chance we've had in a while to get a look at the place as something other than the best damn ski resort in North America. Sitting on the dock of Alta Lake, looking at the range of snow capped peaks to the east, it's pretty easy to forget the tourists, the Olympics, the pressures of growth, the problems with growth, the budgetary hole we're excavating and just enjoy a regenerative glimpse of the beauty all around us.

I'm sorely testing that regenerative power this year. Death seems to be walking in my shadow as people close and not necessarily that close lose their own chess match with the grim reaper and create another void in my psyche. The knock on my own door seems to grow louder when I let my guard down and allow the noise of life to grow quiet enough to pay attention and listen.

I've taken to reading science journals because they're the only sign of intelligent life in the endless mediascape. Always a news junkie, I can barely bring myself to read news and I've mostly given up on watching it on the magic screen. My guard lowered though, I was riveted this week by the WikiLeaks.org video of civilians and a couple of Reuters journalists being blown away in the aftermath of a firefight by a distant, unseen Apache helicopter a couple of years ago.

It wasn't the deaths themselves, the fog of war, the videogame quality of it all or even the outrageous war crime of firing a second time on those who came to offer aid to the injured that seemed so depressing. It wasn't an indictment of the U.S. servicemen who committed the act and seemed as giddy as the boys they were, playing a game of kill the bad guys.

It was the Pogo moment of knowing I was seeing the enemy and that he is us. It was painful measurement of just how thin the veneer of civilized behaviour we generally conduct ourselves under really is, whatever civilized means. It was the knowledge that the highly trained guys in the helicopter weren't really that different from the Jihadists drawing their knives across Daniel Pearlman's throat and, horrors, that neither of them were really that different from you, me, the Nazis-in-waiting we all are.

It was the uncomfortable feeling that we're incapable of learning from our mistakes, fueled in part by Hillary Clinton's thinly-veiled strongarming of Harpo to keep Canadian troops in the hopelessly corrupt cesspool of Afghanistan beyond the completely arbitrary, politically-motivated end date sometime next year. It was the gnawing fear he'll capitulate, or even if he stands firm, that it really doesn't matter since he's already given up on his own humanity over the acquiescence at best, active role at worst, his government's played in turning Canadian-held prisoners over to local torturers in that worthless country.

That's a lot of malaise for even spring in Whistler to burnish. Sometimes, the only thing a guy can do is go for a walk in the woods and shed a few tears.