When I was a teenager we moved to live in a small mining community in north western Ontario where my dad had hired on at one of the mines. The beauty of the landscape, as we traveled along the highway leading toward our new home inspired me to go exploring, something I hadn't done since I was a very small child in Germany. We arrived at our new home well after dark and so I didn't see the area of land immediately surrounding the town as you came off the highway. At the time I had no knowledge of the impact of human activity on nature and wildlife, much less the impact of mining on the immediate environment. So the sight of the dead areas of land immediately surrounding the town had a profound effect on me, once I finally saw them. We were out with new friends, my sister and I exploring.
These dead areas surrounding the town consisted of tracts of exposed unhealthy looking soil of undefined color, drenched by an ugly rusty red liquid spread over it in small puddles and rivulets, and sparsely populated by dead, downed, and rotting trees. We also found the remains of innocent victims, a bunny, and several dead birds. It was a repelling experience; the land a horrific sight. It looked to me just like a very bad disease. I asked one of my new friends what was wrong with the land and he explained what he knew to be the cause. Mining, specifically, the waste left over from the means by which gold was processed. It had simply been dumped everywhere with great carelessness. His explanation had a great deal of impact, and created in me a deep anger and long lasting sadness. I also knew instinctively that this couldn't be good for people's health, if the land was already affected this badly and the wildlife dying, but at the time no one seemed to care.
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