The Cardinal Divide

by Stephen Legault

  “That was on the other side, the side closest to Cadomin. This is a new project. I’m confident that it will happen. Things are different this time around.”

  “Like what?”

  “Well, we got that new manager for one. He’s a real go-getter. The company brought him in from head office to make things happen. He is full steam ahead, let me tell you. Mike Barnes is not going to disappoint me. He’s a fellow who gets things done.”

  “You’ve been disappointed before?” asked Cole.

  “Sure. When that last project got stalled, I was furious. We had it all planned. The timing was perfect. We were going to put this town on the map. That was six years ago. I had just taken over here at the Chamber and things were really starting to happen for me, for the town. But the goddamn feds got their hands in it and really messed things up. I got to tell you, when it comes to messing things up, just ask the federal government to get involved.

  “This time things will be different. We’re going full steam ahead, but we’re taking a different tack. Smarter. Much, much smarter.”

  Cole felt a wave of heat move through him. What did the man mean by that? He asked.

  “Well, for one thing, we’ve put the enviros in their place this time around.” Smith winked, not smiling, and Cole wondered what the wink meant. “They haven’t got a leg to stand on.”

  “How do you mean?” asked an intently interested Cole Blackwater.

  “Well, first off, the greens are hopelessly disorganized. All the rich national groups are off chasing polar bears and butterflies, and our little bunch of local tree huggers are just that. They don’t know what they’re up against. They don’t know how serious this is. This is our town’s future. A little band of housewives and hippies isn’t going to stop this mine.” Cole wrote furiously.

  “I understand they have some business people working with them.”

  “Ahh,” said Smith dismissively, waving his hand and looking off to the side. “A couple of fellows who think that Oracle is going to be the next Canmore or something. They look south at a place like Canmore and think, hey, we can do that here. These folks think that because Canmore was a coal-mining town, and that it’s there next to Banff, that there are somehow parallels.”

  “You mean the world might come flocking to your door and send real estate prices sky high?” Cole asked.

  “Oracle is no Canmore. In Canmore they have Banff just fifteen minutes down the road. And they had the Olympics to publicize how lovely their little town was for the whole world. We’re too far from the mountains and there’s no Olympic cross-country skiing to provide free global marketing for us. No, this town is a mining town, always has been, and that’s the way it’s going to stay. That’s my plan.”

  “What about this Dale van Stempvort character?” asked Cole. “He says he’ll do anything to stop the mine.”

  “That guy should be locked up,” said Smith, seriously, sitting forward and clasping his meaty hands together. “He’s a menace to this community. He shouldn’t be allowed to walk free.”

  “You think he’s dangerous?”

  “Dangerous to the future of this town. Dangerous enough to blow up a gas well. He’s going to kill someone with his antics one of these days.”

  Cole pretended to review his notes. “You mentioned a plan for the town. What is it?”

  “I’ve got lots of plans, and the ones for the town and the ones for David Smith are one and the same. First, we’ve got to get the McLeod River project approved. That’s going to happen quickly. We’ve got that all worked out. Then the road and the rail line will be constructed. We’re already in negotiations with the railway to develop a spur line, so that won’t hold us up. After that it’s only a matter of time before we start digging.” Smith was gleeful, his face wide with his toothy smile. “That will give this town a needed burst of economic activity. Lots of money, you understand, for housing, for infrastructure, for new business. We’ll put this town on the map. And that’s when the second part of my plan will come into effect.”

  Cole raised his eyebrows.

  “That’s when I run for office.”

  Cole smiled and nodded.

  “Its no secret,” said Smith. “I ran for the Reform nomination eight years ago; lost by a few hundred votes. I was just a businessman back then. Now I’m the President of the Chamber of Commerce. I’ve been making the rounds of every town in this riding. I’ve got a great team in place: three local mayors, two reeves, and a pocketful of business people all backing me. The Conservative MP says he won’t run again, and when he steps down, I’ll step up. I’ll be the Member of Parliament for this riding inside a couple of years, you mark my words,” said David Smith, pointing at Cole’s notepad. “Hell, they might even make me Minister of Natural Resources. Now wouldn’t that be a story?” He beamed. “Shop floor to Minister in charge of mines for all of Canada. And when I’m in Ottawa, I sure as shooting won’t let red tape get in the way of projects like McLeod River. I’ll have that process streamlined before you know it.

  “Well, I’m getting ahead of myself,” he said, sitting back in his leather chair, the material creaking under his girth. “My point is that this town’s future is the McLeod River Mine. I aim to do whatever I can to make sure it’s a success. Nobody is going to get in the way this time around.”

  Cole rose. “Well, you’ve been very helpful. I really appreciate your time.” He turned and looked around the room for the first time. Until now he had focused exclusively on Smith. The windows on one wall faced Main Street. Floor to ceiling shelves filled with books and trophies covered another wall. Cole walked over to examine them.

  “Trap and target shooting’s my thing. Relaxes me,” Smith said. His presence behind Cole was palpable. “I’ve won the Alberta Federation of Shooting Sports championship the last two years in a row. When I was young I won a national juniors title in trap. I almost went to the Olympics, you know. I busted my shoulder in the mill a long time ago, and can’t move side to side as quick anymore,” Smith demonstrated. “But I’m steady as a rock, and can see for a mile.”

  Cole looked at the impressive display of trophies.

  “So you’ll put me in this story of yours?” Smith asked, and reached out his hand.

  “Sure will. I appreciate your time,” said Cole, shaking hands again. “OK if I keep in touch?”

  Smith held on for a second. “Absolutely!” Then his voice dropped, “I’m going to do what it takes to make that mine a success, you hear?”

  Was Smith merely driving home his point? Or was he making a new point altogether? A point aimed not at Cole Blackwater, freelance writer, but at Cole Blackwater, hired gun.

  Cole Blackwater had plenty to think about on his drive to the Buffalo Anthracite Mine. Who double-crossed ESCoG? The why was simple; that was no mystery: to undermine the efforts of the grassroots conservation community. He was furious with himself for not seeing this sooner.

  The mole damaged the group’s element of surprise when he or she leaked the story to the press that activists were strategizing to fight the McLeod River Mine. To finger van Stempvort, and not the more reasonable Peggy McSorlie, as the ringleader and spokesperson was cunning. Whoever was behind the ploy knew that van Stempvort could be counted on for off-the-cuff remarks that would inflame the local community. It made Cole Blackwater’s job a lot more difficult.

  Cole drove his Toyota pickup over the gravel road marked Route 40 toward the existing Buffalo Anthracite Mine. He rode up and down rolling hills clad in fir and pine and spruce, the dark mantle of conifers decorated with highlights of brilliant green larch. Above the hills the sky was the kind of blue that Vancouverites quit their jobs for, and his truck kicked up a plume of dust that hung in the air like pollen on a summer’s day. It was early afternoon. Though his meeting with Barnes, the mine manager, wasn’t until five, he wanted to arrive early to have a look at the operation and clear his head.

  Blackwater believed that his ill-conceived cover must have bee
n blown, despite Richard T. Drewfeld’s innocence of the matter. The more he thought about his meeting with David Smith, the more he was convinced that Smith knew who he was. He had done a good job at stringing Cole along, but there was something in his handshake that Cole could not put out of his mind. A warning. Could that mean that Smith and Barnes were in collusion? Had they worked together to orchestrate the placement of the mole inside ESCoG? Perhaps the mole hadn’t told the reporter that Cole was in town to stop the mine. Maybe that part of the story was being saved for the next leak.

  Cole’s mind raced, and as his thoughts consumed him, his foot got heavier and heavier, and his pickup fishtailed on loose gravel around a corner. He took his foot off the accelerator to control the skid. The truck straightened and in a moment Cole was back in the spring-green foothills, driving along this gravel road, more aware than before of the dangerous curves ahead.

  There wouldn’t be another leak. He had instructed Peggy to cut the planning team down to three or four trusted people. They would accelerate their time line. Instead of giving the mining company a month or more before their strategy was fully hatched, Blackwater would see to it that the little team executed their plans in the next two weeks. His blood flowed faster as he scanned his memory of the faces and names in the room during the planning session at the McSorlie farm.

  Two pickup trucks roared past in the opposite direction. Gravel peppered his Toyota like machine gun fire. Dust obscured his vision and Cole drove blind on the unfamiliar road. Good thing he wasn’t driving a rental. The drivers of the racing trucks were likely oil and gas field workers heading home after a day of surveying. The foothills south of Oracle were criss-crossed with seismic lines, the long, arrow-straight lines that divided the landscape into explorable segments of oil and natural gas. Shallow holes drilled at regular intervals along the seismic lines were packed with small explosive charges that sent shock waves into the earth when detonated. Ultra-sensitive geophones recorded the sound as it bounced off layers of rock, water, and pockets of oil or natural gas. The finished product was a map of the subsurface geology and hydrology interpreted by a geologist to determine where a company had a good chance of finding oil or gas.

  Some people said that more forest was clearcut for oil and gas exploration and development than for timber in Alberta, though the oil and gas industry disputed that claim. And Alberta’s timber industry itself had a voracious appetite. Tens of thousands of kilometres of seismic lines were cut annually, and twenty thousand wells drilled each year. Cole slowed until the sky above reappeared. At night, or in bad weather, this section of highway would be downright dangerous, Cole contemplated.

  He drove through the tiny hamlet of Cadomin, big enough for one store where Cole stopped for a Coke and a bag of Doritos. From there the road headed up into the foothills, where the snow-covered ramparts of the Rocky Mountains’ Front Ranges rose beyond the forested domes of spruce and fir. The intense glare of midday relaxed now, and the hills reflected a softer glow. The bountiful spring light seeped like golden molasses over the folds of the earth. This afternoon’s moment conjured memories of his childhood in Alberta’s southern foothills. There the earth wore short, rough fescue, green in the spring and brown in the dry summer months. The foothills in the province’s south were cloaked in aspen, stunted pines, and spruce on their leeward aspects; their windward slopes, which faced incessant western gales, were swept bare of anything taller than a yearling heifer. Toward the Cardinal Divide, they wore a thicker coat of pine and spruce forests that darkened their leeward aspects, while their domes were often peppered with wildflower gardens.

  Cole marvelled at the spring light, how it set each tree into distinct relief. He was distracted enough that when the earth fell away in front of him, he gripped the steering wheel and veered reflexively, crossing the imaginary centre line on the gravel road. “Whoa, horse, take it easy,” he said, laughing shakily, and brought the Toyota back onto the right side of the road, where he slowed, then stopped on the shoulder. He sat, dust rising like smoke.

  When his heart rate resumed a normal pace he stepped from the cab of his truck and walked around its nose to peer into the open pit of the Buffalo Anthracite Mine. The open-pit mine came within a hundred feet of the road and stretched back a kilometre toward the mountains. Entire hills disappeared into its maw. At its deepest, the mine burrowed several hundred feet into the earth, and at its most distant point rose several hundred feet up the side of another foothill. A haul road entered it at the far side, and massive Caterpillar dump trucks inched along the road, dwarfed to the size of real caterpillars by the expanse of the operation. The trucks’ rumble and the loaders’ growl were carried from the bottom of the operation to his ears by a strong and consistent wind that rose off the Front Range peaks well beyond the mine.

  “Holy huge hole in the ground, Batman,” Cole said and whistled through his teeth.

  Strangely, Cole’s first thought was awe at humanity’s might, its way with technology, its ability to manipulate nature to gain affluence and comfort. Open-pit mining was one of the most destructive things people did to the earth: it left nothing of the original landscape. No tree, no hill, no creek, no habitat for anything wild. Nothing. Though the mining companies argued that the pits could be reclaimed, Cole knew, standing next to this hole in the earth, that the mine had eaten these foothills forever.

  Cole’s second thought was even less hopeful: a corporate machine capable of undertaking such a massive project was deeply invested in continuing to dig and rip and consume. Cole Blackwater was up against a more formidable foe than he had bargained for. He definitely wasn’t being paid enough. Briefly he wished he had stayed in Vancouver, where he could hit the Coach and Horses or the Cambie for a few brews, and count on his weekend with Sarah to cheer him up.

  Cole was depressed. He felt very old and very tired, not to mention very small. And not in a comfortable, humble sort of way, but in an unimportant, trivial way. Anger welled up in him as his gaze drowned in the hole before him. His anger didn’t diminish when he thought of his meeting with the hot-shot, Mike Barnes. Cole had to do something to calm himself before meeting with the mine manager. He straightened up and stretched his back.

  He stepped back into the cab of the Toyota and turned the ignition over. Putting the truck in gear, he started down the gravel road. He fumbled through his CDs and found what he was looking for. Midnight Oil blared from the speakers: And some have sailed from a distant shore. And the company takes what the company wants. And nothing’s as precious, as a hole in the ground. Who’s gonna save me? I pray that sense and reason brings us in. Who’s gonna save me? Cole howled along with the song, which made him feel a little better.

  He passed the entrance to the mine and continued down the highway, the beat of the music absorbing the pulse of his anger. He had a couple of hours and he knew exactly what he had to do.

  After fifteen minutes the truck began to labour up the Cardinal Divide, a north-south watershed divide whose waters flowed south into the South Saskatchewan River drainage, to the Atlantic via Hudson’s Bay, north to the Athabasca River watershed, and finally to the Arctic. The wide road narrowed after it passed the mine itself, and soon trees pressed in on the narrow gravel track. The road snaked up the steep north slope of the Divide. In places Cole wondered if there was room for two of the monster pickup trucks to pass one another.

  As it neared the top, the road levelled out, the trees thinned. Cole pulled over and shut down the engine of his truck. He stepped out into the cool, quiet spring air and took a calming breath. He grabbed a pair of binoculars from the glove box and headed east on a narrow trail up the crest of the divide. Legs burning, he emerged from the trees and was rewarded with an inspiring view of the landscape. Now he wished he had taken the stairs more often.

  The flowing mats of grasses and early wildflowers calmed him further. Though it was too early in the spring for the full bouquet of wildflowers that would carpet the Divide in June and July, eve
n now there were enough white pasque flowers, yellow glacier lilies, and purple forget-me-nots to cleanse his mind’s palette of the anger.

  He climbed upward and the trail petered out, but Cole no longer needed it. Intuitively his body knew the way: up, toward the precipice that fell away to the north, toward where he had come, toward the existing Buffalo Anthracite Mine. He gained that crest after another five minutes. His breath was ragged and he felt a disquieting ache in his calves. Sweet mother of pearl, he moaned to himself, you are one sorry, out of shape so-and-so. He thought of his brother Walter, a few years older than he, who still climbed the peaks and ridges of Waterton Lakes National Park as a back-country warden. That was one more reason not to head south after his stay in Oracle. He’d be too embarrassed to be seen in such pathetic condition.

  Now the earth fell away in a different sort of panorama. Cole stepped to the edge of the ridge. To the south, alpine meadows sloped gently into Mountain Park below. To the west, the Divide rose up into the Front Range peaks a mile away. Directly below his vantage point, to the southwest, the McLeod River emerged through the jagged mountains from Jasper National Park. All of this beauty was destined to be devoured if Cole and ESCoG were not successful. He took a deep breath and turned north. Here the earth dropped off sharply in a band of rocky cliffs more than one hundred feet tall. Below that sharp drop, the jumbled terrain sloped gradually in folds to the Mountain Park area a thousand feet below, and a kilometre distant.

  On the gracefully arching promenade of Cardinal Divide, Cole heard the pure music of nature. The existing mine was far enough away to be inaudible. No cars or trucks passed on the road far below or up over the Divide. Birds called and sang; their names he couldn’t recall. Insects buzzed and droned, and a colony of marmots far below went about their daily business with many piercing whistles. He heard the scream of a hawk high above. Cole took his binoculars in hand and trained them on the bird circling overhead. Cooper’s Hawk? He could not be sure. He was a pathetic naturalist.