Went for a cig run. That means Oka. To the reserves. To the plastic bagged cartons. These are the things you find in the first-nation lands I haven’t bothered to learn the name of. It’s Oka to me. Of cheese and crisis. It’s the place I get cheap cigarettes and quality weed.
So to get there and back you pass Carillon dam. In building it, it is a travesty. Not only did it flood communities. Make land into sea. It destroyed the ecology of the Ottawa river. No longer was it the untamed rapids. It was now like a lake, and placid. All but the sea. So here the poisons linger.
Back in it’s day Hawkesbury was a stain upon the land and water. So great that to this day governments fight with who should pay for the environmental cleanups. The land is poisoned by companies and a desperate public. In need of jobs and pay. Ignoring the damage their employers were making.
To this day much of the waterfront of Hawkesbury is toxic. Large swaths of riverfront property uninhabitable. Thanks to the employers of it’s past, this land is fallow.
Thanks to the dam it won’t wash away.
