Water, the World, and a Sunrise Ceremony

Buses are plying the roads. Military vehicles are everywhere. There are high speed boats on Peninsula Lake. We were chatting with the vet who is on contract to take care of any issues for the Police Dogs K9 unit. The crash barriers are up on Hwy. 60. This morning the F18's were screaming overhead, wingtip to wingtip.

Everywhere else, in this bizarre scenario, life unfolds peacefully and as usual. There are parking spots in town. Lots of stock in the stores. Cheerful faces. Plenty to talk about... Nothing like an international Summit to provide talking points to one and all.

The International plaza built for the occasion in town is proudly flying all the 8 nation flags, plus one for the EEC.

Deerhurst is now closed to the public. It's a beehive of activity putting on the finishing touches. After all, Deerhurst will be front and centre in the Photo Op.

There's lots else going on as well. This Monday, June 21, the Summer Solstice, will see National Aboriginal Day taking place in Huntsville. If you get yourself up to the Memorial Park behind the new Summit Centre at 5.30 in the morning, you can take part in the Sunrise Ceremony. If you tend to rise a little later, the PowWow is on all day long. This event, honouring World and G8 Leaders is hosted by Chippewas of Rama First Nation and Wasauksing First Nations. The Powwow Grand Entry begins at 12:30

The Water Festival is on, June 20, at Rivermill Park in Huntsville. In its inaugural year, Huntsville Water Festival celebrates water and its life-giving qualities by educating and exciting our local community on water stewardship responsibilities and green energy resources, while raising awareness and funds for the growing world water crisis. There are a lot of events... you should go. Tell Jessica I sent you...

The second part of the Water Festival happens Thursday, June 24. The Girl 8 concert - with performances by Tina Turley, Sherisse Stevens, Linda McLean, Ruth Cassey with Ivan Blackbird, Sarah Spring with Tobin Spring and Amanda Penner, Chistine Heron, Meg Jordan, Jaime Payne and Sarah McNeil and the Huntsville Youth Choir.

Money raised from the Water Festival will go towards the purchase of respiratory masks for clean-up crews battling the Gulf of Mexico Oil Spill in partnership with Robert F Kennedy Jr’s Waterkeeper Alliance; and to Huntsville High School’s Me to We Program – a program born out of Free the Children – recognizing students who have volunteered their time and enthusiasm to making Huntsville Water Festival and Girl 8 a success

Bracing for Impact

Welcome to Deerhurst Resort. That's the turn to the place, up ahead where the traffic lights are.

Traffic was sparse this day, so I was able to take a second to snap this through the truck windshield. These are the ever-so-attractive security fences going up in honour of the day and a half G8 coming to town at the end of the month. Granted, security fences are there for security, not for good looks. The army is in residence now. Huge trucks and flatbeds carrying even huger vehicles in army green keep driving past.

The Hercules was circling overhead today, low enough I could almost introduce myself to the cockpit crew.

Security is the order of the day, and for good enough reasons, although yes, it does sound like a billion dollars for what is really only a one and a half day show is excessive by any standard.

On the other side of the commotion and confusion coin is the "legacy" of buildings paid for by G8 dollars other than the billion for security and let us not even touch on that Fake Lake Muskoka travelogue built in Toronto.

Two of those legacies popped up in Huntsville. In the photo Brian snapped last week while flying with Nick Kohler from McLeans, you can easily spot Cann Lake. just to the top of that (real) lake is the site of the University of Waterloo campus. That's a wonderful addition to this town. To any town, really, but why not here? And just to the left of that is the huge roof of the massive Summit Centre Olympic size skating rink, $23 million (give or take) of our tax dollars in action. We're not sure what use it is being put to for the Summit. (after all, if they told people these things, how secure would the security be???) But we're pretty sure it's one helluva structure for a Summit of such short duration.

We were promised that this event would bring unprecedented journalistic coverage promoting the area... so sitting the journalists on a fake dock by a fake lake listening to fake loons should really draw out their very best literary efforts to encourage folks to come here. Mind you, the REAL THING is right here, just two hours north of Toronto. We'd be delighted to have those self-same journalists sit on a real dock, by our real lake. We'll even bring them real beer from a real brewery, but I digress...

We're ready to welcome the World, even if they'll only be in town so briefly. Although one can't help but ponder, if the problems facing the World today could be solved in a one day meeting, never mind that they are supposed to keep talking while dining or if they wander onto the links... if it was really able to be so swiftly solved, would we not have done it by now?