Editor,
According to last weeks paper there are many in this town who object to cutting down the trees in front of the new Holiday Inn.
As well, all summer local papers and politicians were inundated with letters from anti-GAS supporters who claim that Garibaldi at Squamish shouldn't go ahead because, among other things, some logging would need to occur.
Does anyone else find it ironic that there are scores of people trying to save as many trees as possible in our community but there hasn't been a peep about the 30-foot statue of an unamused looking logger (named Sam the Axe Man) with his big boot propped up on a huge dead log, leaning on a massive axe promoting Squamish Loggers Sports now on seemingly permanent display beside the Squamish Adventure Centre?
I am greatly concerned that Sam the Axe Man (who I thought was only supposed to be on display six weeks of the year) will be kept up until, and throughout, the Olympics and seen by over a billion people worldwide (including the press, visitors and athletes alike) as, for all intents and purposes, the (un)official Squamish mascot due to his enormous size and incredibly prominent placement.
I think everyone in our community should be concerned about the mixed messages Sam the Axe Man will be conveying to the world about Squamish during the so-called Green Olympics.
I think we all need to ask ourselves, (with all due respect to Squamish Loggers Sports and to those in my family who have worked all their lives in the BC lumber industry and bravely faced numerous mill closures, serious workplace injuries, and, with one final mill closure, had their pensions put at risk), "do we really want Sam the Axe Man as the (un)official mascot that symbolizes Squamish and all its citizens in 2010 and beyond?"
I am neither anti-logging, anti-environment, nor am I some sort of elitist. What I am is aware that we live in a world filled with short attention spans, Twitter, YouTube, and 30 second TV news stories.
I fear Sam the Axe Man's presence will only cement the often perceived, but painfully out-of-date, image of Squamish as a sleepy little logging town the world passes through on its way to Whistler.
Undoing, in two weeks, the years of effort and money it took to successfully re-brand Squamish as the Outdoor Recreation Capital of Canada.
Buzz Henczel
Squamish
