Editorially speaking...
For years, I’ve grumbled about the freedom given land developers to name subdivisions, roads and the like after their children or their dog or whatever...
Far, far better, I believe, to name public lands and thoroughfares—they become public once the developer’s done his thing—after pioneers and those who’ve really contributed to the society that we’ve inherited. Most of the benefits that we enjoy, are the work and sacrifices of those who came before us, sometimes, as in the case of wartime casualties, at the expense of their lives.
So I was overjoyed to read in the Times Colonist recently that Langford has named a new park off Bear Mountain Parkway, Flying Firemen Park.
It honours Alexander Davidson and Robert (Paddy) Moore who died when their Canso water bomber crashed while fighting a fire on Skirt Mountain, bordering Goldstream Provincial Park, in the summer of 1967.
I have particular reason to remember this tragedy.
My friend Dave and I had spent the weekend digging bottles in Cumberland’s Chinatown and were on our way home early that Sunday evening. Somewhere north of the Malahat we encountered bumper-to-bumper traffic, then gridlock.
The smoke from the fire almost shrouded the highway from this point on but we were trapped so had to grin and bear for a couple of hours. We weren’t listening to the radio, simply supposed that the holdup was because of the forest fire.
Only the next day did I learn that these two heroic pilots had died after (as was reported at the time) the left wing of their water bomber clipped a treetop.
I’ve visited the wreckage several times and was impressed by the intense heat of the impact of the twin engines where they struck the rock face; so hot that the aluminum had not only melted but fused with the rock.
A sobering reminder of the sometimes human cost of forest fires, too many of which are the result of human stupidity—like the idiot in front of us who, as we waited in the miles-long line of stalled cars on the Malahat, as we could hardly see for the smoke, threw his cigarette butt onto the roadway.
I salute Langford for honouring pilots Davidson and Moore. May other municipal and regional governments follow suit.
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