Text size

E-mail this column

Lord Voldemort at the dump

Tales from the dump
with Walt Humphries
Friday, June 20, 2008

Previous columns 

Not surprisingly, people often tell me about their concerns with the dump.

I think many feel I am more receptive and sympathetic to their problems than the city is. One of the biggest issues I hear about is why people aren't allowed to salvage at the contractors-only area of the dump?

Now, I don't have any definitive answers to this perplexing question but I am not afraid to speculate and offer my own theory.

Well, boys and girls, here is the tale. Once upon a time, a long, long time ago, contractors were treated just like everyone else at the dump. They would pull up with a truck load of materials to throw off and they would be told that wood was to go into the wood pile and the rest of the material was to go to the salvage pile. The system worked well for decades and everyone was happy. Contractors off-loaded and salvagers salvaged. Many a bush cabin, garden shed and back deck was built with materials salvaged from the dump, the sun shone, the birds sang and people whistled while they worked.

Most local contractors are decent, honest, hard-working folks. In fact many are heroes, who willingly go above and beyond the call of duty to ensure that their customers are well looked after. Most would gladly give away any old materials they no longer wanted and they had no problem with salvagers at the dump.

However, as the city grew, some new, not-so-nice contractors came to town. They didn't like this system because it took too long to separate their loads and they complained the salvage area was too small, cramped and congested for their trucks to manoeuvre in quickly. They used the excuse that some of the material they were dumping off had nails in it and that this could be considered a safety issue. They lobbied and complained until they got their own contractors' area, up on the hill high above the regular dump users.

Some of these evil contractors also don't want people salvaging and doing their own work, because they reckon it cuts into their business. A few of the truly evil ones don't even want people to see what they are throwing out. They work on a cost plus basis for materials, so the more they use, waste and throw away, the more money they make. How else can you explain a pile of two-by-fours or sheets of plywood, which have never been used, ending up in the contractors-only area?

This seems really silly and wasteful. There is lots of room at the site for people to park and not interfere with trucks. There is also lots of good material that could be salvaged. So keeping salvagers from the area is just plain wrong. So these contractors, who practised the dark arts of deception and greed, are probably allied with Lord Voldemort who used black magic to bewilder, befuddle and bamboozle the muggles at city hall. They convinced the city administrators to go against all the city's stated dump policies of reducing, salvaging and an open access dump. They banned salvagers and salvaging from the contractors' area and despite logic, reason and common sense, they are adamant in their decision, so they must be truly possessed by demons from the dark side.

So boys and girls, that is why I think there is a contractors-only area at the dump. It is going to be a long summer without a Harry Potter book to read.

However, if you need a fix you can go to the dump and watch the daily Quidditch match between the ravens and the seagulls.

- Walt Humphries is a well-known Yellowknife artist and prospector