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They’re gonna blow up Ripple Rock,” whose peak was a mere In the first year of the Two years after the abandonment of the said Lindy. nine feet under the sur- Dirty Thirties a marine first ill-fated attack on the rock another “ I looked back into the living room. face at low tide. commission was struck assault was approved. This one involved Her brother Lloyd and here dad were Captain Richards of by the Canadian govern- the use of overhead steel lines to secure staring, transfixed, at the TV as they re- the Royal Navy could be ment. At the end of their the drilling barges. In total the projects flexively munched on bread, bacon, and forgiven for not knowing deliberations they rec- designers envisioned that 1500 explosions eggs, which they chased with loud sips of that the obstacle lying ommended its removal. would be sufficient to remove enough coffee. Television was a slower medium in in the narrowest part Opposition to environ- of the mountain to make navigation a 1958, but even by the standards of time, of Seymour Narrows, a mentally warped ideas breeze. The execution proved wanting as, this was a laggardly presentation. There stretch of barely naviga- is not an entirely new at the end of the project, a mere 93 of the was a chunk of coast line, the sea, and ble water that Captain phenomenon. In 1860s explosions went of successfully. some fog. Nothing was moving all of it Vancouver called “one a group of citizens from There were other ideas afloat at the same in black and white with shades of grey. of the vilest stretches the newly created prov- time, but first some historical context. “Who’s gonna blow it up?” of water in the world,” SKEENA ANGLER ince of British Columbia This was 1945, arguably the most mo- Lindy relayed my query. was actually a apex of hatched a proposal to mentous year in humanity’s short history. “Bobby wants to know who’s gonna an undersea moun- ROB BROWN connect Vancouver Is- On the 12th of April, the greatest of U.S. blow it up?” she shouted at the captivated tain when, in 1860, he land to the mainland at presidents, FDR, died. audience. dubbed it Ripple Rock Ripple rock 5 Bute inlet with a bridge On July 16, Robert Oppenheimer Her dad looked away from the TV set. for the standing wave it using Ripple Rock to watched a mushroom cloud from his He swallowed. He looked irritated at hav- created in the fast and support the span. The bunker in Almorgado New Mexico and ing his attention momentarily divided. dangerous currents of Discovery Passage. idea garnered a lot of support from people recalled snippet of Hindu scripture, “Now “The government is,” he said. Fifteen years after it was misnamed, who could see the advantages of enabling I am become Death, the destroyer of “C’mon,” said Lindy ushering out Ripple Rock claimed its first victim, the the people from Courtenay and Campbell Worlds.” through the screen door, which slammed side wheeler steamship Sarnac. In the River area of VanIsle to have easy access On August 6th a similar bomb hit Hi- behind us as all screen doors seem to do. years between 1875 and April of 1958, to the mainland. roshima. “I didn’t see a rock.” no fewer than 120 vessels, many bound Despite the opposition to blowing the Three days later another blew up Na- “It’s under the sea.” for Alaska, fell prey to the infamous rock. top off the rock, the Federal Government gasaki. “So, why is the government blowing The official death toll from drowning as a authorized attempts to do so. A year later On the same day, the Japanese learned it up?” result of these shipwrecks was 110 souls. floating drilling barges were dispatched the Red Army had invaded Manchuria “I dunno,” said Lindy, clearly tiring of While acknowledging that the Seymour with orders to plant sufficient explosives bound for Tokyo, and they declared their my barrage of questions. “Ships run into Narrows posed significant problems for to do just that. The first barge were se- intention to surrender on the 14th of Au- it or something.” navigation, Vancouver and Richards cured with half a dozen steel cables just gust. They sure did, as I learned years later passed safely through it in their wind pow- under 4 centimetres thick, which seems a On 10th of September, Igor Guzenko from a book on Marine disasters I checked ered wooden boats by waiting for slack little thin. These cables were attached to walked out of the Soviet Embassy in Otta- out of crazy old Mr. McMaster’s library tide to do so. Presumably, the skippers of anchors that weighed 166 metric tonnes wa and revealed that their was a spy ring in Kensington Junior High. Fascinated, the doomed ships that ran afoul of Ripple each. operating in Canada. It was the event that I read that Ripple Rock was much more Rock were in a greater hurry and paid the The first assault on the rock was a bust marked the beginning of the Cold War. than a rock, it was an undersea mountain ultimate price for their haste. as one of the cables broke every two days. … to be continued….

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