Both locals and visitors in Tofino have long complained that so-called Catface Mountain looks nothing like a cat’s face, but nobody has ever done anything about it. Now a philanthropic Vancouver mining company, Selkirk Metals, has stepped in to address the problem.
Catface makeover steps 1-5
“All it’s going to take is a little redistribution of the existing rock,” said Slick Veneer, media relations officer for the mining and exploration company. “It’s very much like cosmetic surgery, but on a bit larger scale. But once we remove those millions of tons of waste rock, dump it on the beaches at the foot of the mountain, build the giant ore-processing plant, the deepwater port, and create the lake of toxic waste, it’s going to be a dead ringer for that cute, fuzzy kitty-cat you loved as a child.”
The company is even going so far as to ship some of the rock away, to help the project along. “There might concievably be something useful in some of that rock, say something like copper, maybe. And because we’re a mining company committed to the environment, we’re going to do our darndest put that rock to good use, no matter what it costs us.”
Environmental groups, which rely on a continual state of impending catastrophe to keep their funds flowing, are predictably sounding the alarm, citing well-known examples of other open-pit mountain makeovers and the extensive environmental degradation they caused.
Other observers are not so worried about the environmental impact. “Ah, they’re never going to go through with an actual mine,” said lawyer and part-time Tofino resident Buster Uppanotch. “The whole exercise is all about First Nations milking the white man for whatever they can get, and the mining company pumping up its stock price to make a few shareholders rich.”
The initial exploratory drilling comes on the heels of a Memorandum of Understanding signed with the Ahousaht First Nation, in whose traditional territory the mountain lies. The band showed no interest in cooperation with resource companies in past years, said company negotiator Hannover D. Payola, who played a key part in the recent MOU signing. But the negotiations gathered momentum when band officials’ pickup trucks started pushing five years old. “We had to do something,” said a band spokesman, “the situation was getting desperate.”
Now things are turning around for the suffering town. Unemployment has plummeted, thanks to the eight temporary jobs that came about as a result of the agreement. Asked about the future of their town existing in what could effectively become an environmental toilet bowl, one chief said, “That’s tomorrow. We are focused on today.”
In fact, Ahousaht elders are now reportedly in the process of changing the Nuu-cha-nulth motto, Hishuk ish ts’awalk — “Everything is one,” a statement of ecological integrity — to the far more adaptable hishuk ish ts’amoo-moo-lah — “Everything is one big cash cow.”
