In 1960, when my grandparents sold their house in Point Grey for $16,000 and moved to Egmont, life was pretty much the same there as it was in Pender Harbour.
They had power and water but not much else and people relied on their neighbours for help when things went bad.
Nowadays, people in Pender Harbour take for granted such things as cable TV or high-speed internet and when we have chest pains, we expect the ambulance in minutes. In Egmont, a windstorm often knocks out emergency communications, cutting the community off from the basic health services we all rely on.
I attended the AGM of the Egmont Community Club a few days ago and it’s funny how different life is only 20 minutes away. The residents don’t just gather to discuss this year’s May Day theme.
They discussed strategies on how best to cope with a natural disaster and went over developments for preparing the community hall as a refuge where people can warm up, get some cooked food and share information, knowing it’s likely they’ll be completely cut off from the outside world. After one of the many storms of this past year, Egmont was without telephone service for eight days. Cell phones rarely work past the "S" bends at Ruby Lake.
As one person at the meeting said, this is what you expect when you move to Egmont and you have to be prepared to take car of yourself. That means having a generator, a chainsaw and a four-wheel drive. Recently, an elderly woman took a bad fall during a storm when the phone lines were down and it identified the potential for an unnecesary tragedy. During another outage this past winter, an ambulance was stationed outside the entrance to the Skookumchuck Trail 24 hours a day in case of such an emergency.
Or, recall our water problems from this past fall. Egmont has been on a boil water advisory for 8 years.
Until recently, with the formation of the Egmont Volunteer Fire Department, if an Egmonster’s house started to burn, he or she could only rely on their neighbours for help because they were outside the fire protection district. Being outside of a fire protection district means that most home insurers won’t grant protection, so when the house does burn, it’s gone.
Egmont is as close to living off the grid as you can get and still be near paved roads and the town has always attracted independent people who appreciate and are equipped to cope with these challenges. Living here does require people to prepare for emergencies and look out for each other and clearly it keeps the community close. Maybe this is the biggest difference between life in Pender Harbour and Egmont and I’ll probably get hate mail for even suggesting improvements should be considered.
Many Egmonsters wouldn’t have it any other way and I’m not sure I blame them.
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