Large Fierce Mammal

Doing nothing which is of no use. (Mrs. LFM photo)

“Musashi quite wisely said, ‘Do nothing which is of no use,’ and with that in mind, I prefer a return to first principles — the safety of an enterprise MUST have no bearing on the worthiness of its pursuit. Only upon the manner of its execution. Even then, this will be governed on a sliding scale running between proceed with caution and damn the torpedoes, depending on the urgency placed upon achieving the objective.

“Any other mindset will see people peeing their pants in front of the door to the washroom labelled as most accommodating their genitalia while the one oppositely labeled stands vacant. Killed in a cross walk because the sign said ‘WALK’, so they did.

“The mantra of ‘safety first’ is the kind of bullshit that, blindly accepted, puts someone else in charge of your safety so you don’t have to own it. So you can be the ‘victim’ who must never be blamed but always believed.

“We teach our children to look both ways before crossing the street, not to avoid crossing streets altogether. Risk management is an industry term that, by its definition, represents a mindset recognizing that even though there are risks to life and limb inherent in an enterprise, they can be identified and if not circumvented, at least limited in scope or effect.” ~ Risk: Nothing of Value Happens Without It

Previously in this series were:

• De Woodz iz Cloze published 10 August 2025; and
• Now is the Summer of Our Discontent published 1 September 2025.

If you haven’t already read those, I encourage you to do so now to infuse more clarity into what follows.

I am pleased to report that as of 18 September 2025, and with the exception of Annapolis County where an existing wildfire is nearing its conclusion, closure by the Nova Scotia Government of all woodlands and trails therein where such exist, to all purposes real and imagined, to anyone who is not in possession of a permit granted under the authority of the Minister of Natural Resources, has been lifted. As I have written in previous installments, the travel ban measure came in the wake of a pre-existing ban on open fires — not an imprudent nor unusual action in wildfire season — and carries on in the same line of intention as necessary for “the protection of the woods”.

Empowered by long standing legislation and precedent though it may be, I find the “travel ban” this time around to be most troubling not in the fact of its invocation and persistence notwithstanding visibly and measurably significant improvements in forest fire index, but most starkly in the way its justification has been framed by those who released it into … the wild … so to speak.

Officials  these days are predisposed to rule by decree, as often as not from a starting point of “crisis”. All too often, even a superficial examination of the justification for such decrees exposes lack of evidence that restrictions imposed will have any of the desired effects, begging questions of what the unspoken reasons are. I refer here not of conspiracies cooked up by secret cabals of billionaire “elites” and “lawmakers” suspected to be forever in their debt — a slippery slope leading to wasted time if ever there was one — preferring instead to stick with Hanlon’s Razor:

“Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity.”

For example, it has not escaped my notice that, of those attracted to offer for elected office, greatest success is found by those blessed with a combined ability both to overthink, and fail to think through, those problems they promise to solve.

A common manifestation of this propensity is that it leads to a style of governance leaning heavily upon creation of artificial demographics; groups divided from the general population into “special interests” upon which restrictions are to be applied, or “stakeholders” where efforts will be made in the direction of comfort; and finding yourself the recipient of one of these labels will stand as a good indicator of government sensibilities. No matter what tempest ails the teapot, I note two inevitabilities:

1. Those applying the labels rarely share, or at least rarely behave as though they share, understand, or even wish to understand, anything but the most superficial levels of common ground with those deemed “special interest”; and
2. Such labels are often applied to courses of government action announced to be under consideration rather than to the fait accompli represented by a Proclamation or Order in Council, and when offered more tentatively I use my personal favourite descriptive — trial balloon.

Getting back then to the current FIRE PROCLAMATION- TRAVEL BAN with its sweeping application to  “… any area of the woods upon which no person shall enter for the purpose of travelling, camping, fishing or picnicking, or any other purpose …” (absent permit), we find it built atop a set of common talking points first given voice by Premier Tim Houston in a press conference announcing the travel ban in which he justified the measure based on the 2023 wildfires afflicting Tantallon and Shelburne County, and this summer’s Annapolis County fire which was still burning out of control when the travel ban was proclaimed.

I would pause to point out that at the time of Mr. Houston’s announcement, causes for all three were well known to be:

• Tantallon: A property owner burning debris in her yard in face of a prevailing ban on open fires and previous warning to desist.
• Shelburne County: Arson
• Annapolis County: Natural Causes (lightning strike)

Yet in a room presided over by Premier Houston containing people charged with management of organizations and assets responsible for wildfire prevention, detection, and suppression in all its uncertainties and complexity, the decision was made to put a stop to wildfires by identifying and banning activities he described as “… unnecessary…” and “… a small price to pay right now to avoid the kind of devastation that we saw from the wildfires in 2023. Nobody wants to go back there. Nobody wants a repeat of that ….”

You would swear consideration of the fact that none of the named activities played any part in causing the fires of 2023 and 2025 was deemed as “unnecessary” as the activities themselves, instead seeing people simply being in the woods for “… any other reason …” cast under a cloud of apocalyptic portent.

And so we have the lumping together under superficial labels the risk represented by the activities of people who —

• consume tobacco or cannabis by incendiary means, and/or alcoholic beverages, in ill advised times and places;
• travel through the woods for any purpose by any means including but not limited to foot; bicycle, off-road vehicle, mobility scooter, low trajectory trebuchet, etc.;
• willingly participate in sleeping and living in a rural setting, possibly for days on end, with or without benefit of tents or other rustic shelters, absent the necessities of homelessness (also known as “camping”); and/or
• undertake to obtain sustenance from Natural sources by way of foraging, fishing, hunting, or any other low-technology, non-commercial means;

— as belonging to a group woven from common cloth, into which I may personally be hammered like a square peg into a round hole wherein lies everything ill considered, non-essential, unsafe, and unsound.

Risk Management, my field of profession, recognizes the liabilities introduced by human thoughtlessness, negligence, incompetence, and abject idiocy. It does not, however, seek to contain idiocy by branding all people idiots. If it did, motor vehicle operation would be a niche market indeed.

And so I resent being neatly rolled up with the thoughtless, negligent, incompetent, idiots. Professionally, personally, and not least because Mrs. LFM and I have Good Men to raise.

“I constantly speak here to how important it is to conduct your activities everywhere, but most particularly in the Wild, to be in keeping with the Way of the Wild. Watch, study, and learn from the other creatures of Nature that you share the space with, understand your role in the scheme of things, and behave accordingly. Our approach includes being vigilant to truly observe what is going on around us, as well as what has recently gone on as evidenced by the signs left by the presence of others, whatever their species. We choose our clothing to blend with our environment, even as others clothed by Nature will blend, know when and how to be still, and to move with care to cause the minimum of disturbance and afford the maximum in sure footedness. We speak in hushed, respectful tones. We choose our footwear for stealth and minimal distress to what comes to be beneath our tread.

“You will find that this practice will be rewarded with sights and experiences that would otherwise never have revealed themselves to you. You will also find that you will detect the presence of others before they become aware of yours, and these will include other Humans.

“We choose the venues for many of our jaunts to avoid other people because, quite honestly, if we want to see you in the woods we will invite you to come with us. Otherwise, well, we don’t go deep into a moonlit forest for a picnic at midnight to engage in conversation with passers by, however pleasant or comely they may be.” ~ No Man Meets a Friend in the Desert

The only thing shared by people indulging in any of the aforesaid list of banned activities is that they do what they do in a setting of woodland or field. Lacking context, any similarities beyond that become completely divorced from Reality where outcomes are governed by adherence to sound practices, level of understanding, and willingness to accept personal responsibility for actions. Some of those one meets upon a day afield will be idiots in daily life, more or less in the same proportion of the general population, regardless of the venue.

Some people do questionable things wherever they feel safe from the consequences. All one need do to understand this is drive after dark on any highway — inside or outside of wildfire season — to observe the witless flicking of a cigarette butt out the window of a car ahead, the explosion in the darkness of its wake as a momentary starburst of incandescent ash, then a spent but still glowing mote skidding unpredictably into the night. Unless done when the trailing vehicle is a police car, and possibly not even then, the chances of consequences are close enough to zero for the difference to be meaningless, even if a civilian driver reports the incident complete with high resolution dash cam footage.

I will close today by handing the microphone to my Esteemed Friend Martin whose comment on my 10 August 2025 opener on this subject offered these valuable insights:

“I am of about 3 minds on this one Randy, as a regular hiker I feel rather frustrated, but then I think they have to legislate to the lowest common denominator which isn’t the typical hiker who cares for the woods and wildcard. It is the moron smoking, having a toke, or lighting a campfire to have lunch or some drinks, these are the idiots we need to keep out of the woods. Unfortunately we cannot apply an IQ test or better yet a woods Q test to those entering the woods. I have also never seen so many fat asses that prior to the ban never walked further than the distance between their car and nslc (liquor store), now claim to be avid hikers, whose rights are being trampled. The greater concern are the army of atv/utv/biker types racing through tinder dry woods with hot exhaust, no spark arrester, half drunk and tossing cigarette buts hell and yonder. I guess to be honest as much as I would like to be free to hike, there are a lot that don’t respect the land, if we can keep any of those out, I am happy to wait for rain.”

While I don’t agree with my Wise Friend in the need to, “… legislate to the lowest common denominator ….”, on the grounds that I posit doing so denies the existence of Competence in favour of expecting its opposite in all but an insignificantly minuscule number of cases, it’s clear to me he feels as much joy at being treated as a square peg as I do, and in his position on the disparate nature of this province’s bestiary of assholes breaks a splendid trail to exactly where we’re going.

There are things to be done to undo the sins of the past, the legacy of which render this province more vulnerable to bad outcomes and bad actors than it needs to be.

Until next time Weary Pilgrims, when this line of thought will be brought to its conclusion.