I was out at the ubc botanical gardens today. It was a beautiful sunny day. Because of my volunteer work, I was given a pass (check it out 2009 tourism challange) that allows me to take a guest, and get into tourist attractions around town, like the garden, for free! This particular attraction also included the Canopy Walkway tour. Totally unexpected. i had already planned a trip to the Museum of Anthropology with a friend, and since we were out that way, took advantage of the pass that I just picked up in the morning. The MOA was disappointing as most of the exhibition rooms were under renovation! To my 3 readers, or known followers, you don't live here anyway, but I recommend not visiting the MOA until they reopen the areas being renovated.
Back to the garden - that was also unimpressive, mainly because there were hardly any plants or flowers in bloom. But the canopy walk was a pleasant surprise. It's bascially these ewok like metal platforms wrapped around the trees, connected by metal and rope bridges, sort of like the capilano suspension bridge,but high up in the trees. I'm trying to figure out how to attach a photo so you can see this! Figured it out. The photo shows the bridges hanging from each platform, which encompassed the trees , approximately 35 feet up in the air, and at the highest platform, 65 feet above the forest floor. There were about 10 of us on this tour, the majority of us from the lower mainland I believe. Our guide was a young man just completing his first year of university - a good kid. The tour wasn't overwhelmingly breathtaking nor too fascinating, but being suspended above the ground in this fashion was definitely different and again, felt ewokish!
So now to the title of my post, Jackass or evil darth lord or typical drive dude They're everywhere aren't they?? The one on our tour, was a 20 something, would be tree hugging hippy, with overgrown beard, smirk-i'm-a-know-it-all jackass of a jackass, still in school with a major student loan to pay off, or would be skater boy/waiter type wearing a stupid floppy hat shaped like an elephant, yes elephant, who was accompanied by his equally annoying, please, just shut the f- up girlfriend.
Our young jedi tour guide who probably only makes minimum wage whilst still in school, who did a pretty good job on the limited material he had to work with, but was very competent nonetheless, had mentioned at one of our tree stops, that the mechanics of the bridges and platforms that snaked through the forest were designed in a way that would cause the least amount of impact or damage to the trees as possible. The mechanics of it were very interesting - nothing was actually attached to the trees, as in no nails or pegs drilled into the trunks - basically everything was suspended from the tops of the trees. Hard to explain.
Anyhoo, our snarky jackass had to comment " that the ropes were acutualy digging into the bark on this tree,see, look, can you see it here young jedi and therefore damaging the tree and didn't you young underpaid tour guide say at the last platform that this set up wouldn't harm the trees??? Yes i know you only work here but perhaps you should inform your bosses that this set up is in fact harming the tree! "
Okay, he more or less said it this way, I exaggerate only a little bit. His equally annoying girlfriend chimed in with her own, you're hurting the tree sermon, blah, blah, at which point I had to stop myself from wanting to throw both of them off the platform. Buh- bye you wanna be environmentalists! Our young tour guide was able to deflect the evil darth lords jackassnessism quite well by giving an answer that would have satisfied most people but apparently not our jackass and the jackasse's boil on his butt girlfriend. I think at this point our jackass realized that he was being a jackass and if he didn't shut up and leave our young jedi alone the other ewoks on the tour where prepared to beat his dumbass with our cameras and send him and his elephant hat head over the rails, and surprisingly both he and his boil said no more for the rest of the tour. (jedi mind trick)
I have nothing against people who want to save the trees, but really, why be a jackass about it? Did he realize that perhaps the gortex jacket he was wearing probably caused more damage to the enviroment than some of the bark on a tree being scratched by a rope at this site???? Let's look at the man made fabric that was required to make his jacket, the chemicals used to produce the nylon. What about his denim pants? What kind of washing and chemicals were used to create the look of the denim - water wasted to wash those damn pants; water that eventually ended up in the rivers of China further polluting the already polluted waterways? And what about that stupid faux fur polyester dumbass elephant hat that anyone over the age of 2 shouldn't be wearing? Where was that man made fabric hat made - perhaps in some factory in China where the workers only make $10 or less a day? Where does he live? In a house built with some, lets see, wood?? What does he use to wipe his sorry ass with everyday? He's probably a "vegetarian" who eats chicken and fish though! Hey, wake up call. You're not a vegetarian.
It's bark. On a tree. The trees aren't going to die. Are you really going to make an issue about that???? I asked questions to our young jedi tour guide, like, "how long did it take to set up this canopy walkway?" and " was this area affected by the wind storms a few years back?".
The point of all of this is, first, other than a brief moment in time when the jackasses of the world managed to disrupt an interesting tour, overall my day was good. The other point is for said jackasses - there was no need to speak to our tour guide in the tone that you spoke to him which was condescending and had an air of superiority. You can fight your battles without making it a battle. And really, this wasn't even an issue. It was like he was trying to find something, anything that would discredit this site as harmful and dangerous to the environment. If you're trying to find fault just so you can further a cause, sit down buddy! Unless you live without any modern conveniences at all, live off the land, out in the middle of no where, which buddy, i know you don't, just go back to your shack down on the drive and smoke your pot and figure out how you're going to save world as you drink your $4 latte in it's styrofoam cup. I just completely stereotyped this guy.
ubcbotanicalgarden.org/visitorinfo/greenheart-canopy-walkway.php
