OUR TOWN: Protest Truck, Highland Park
two-thousand-seventeen is the Year of the Protest. Or was that last year? No, wait—maybe that was 1968. We’ve lost track. Nevertheless, apathy, it seems, is solidly out. Certainly, there’s no lack of causes, worthy or otherwise, to attach oneself to. Neither is there any shortage of innovative methods for making one’s views known, from throwing one’s fellow tenors under a bus with a rogue take on the national anthem to chanting alongside k.d. lang in front of Calgary’s city hall in the name of women’s rights.
Sometimes, however, it’s the more stealthy, silent approach to protest that has the biggest impact. The protest truck, as we’ve dubbed the vehicle pictured above, is a quiet constant in a civic situation that has become so noisy and complex that city councillor Druh Farrell recently referred to it as “a hot mess.”
Nearly four years ago, the land once occupied by the Highland Park Golf Course—a.k.a. “the gulley”—was sold to a partnership headed up by Maple Projects. The Vancouver developer wants to build 2,000-plus residential units on the 21-hectare site, which sits south of McKnight Boulevard at Centre Street North. While many agree that development of some variety would be good for the ’hood, the company’s plans have not been warmly embraced by community members or city councillors. Last summer, Maple Projects was sent away to come up with an improved rendering with more green space, shorter buildings and better integration with the future Green Line LRT. Last month, the new drawings were met with yet more disappointment, including from Mayor Nenshi, who diplomatically announced that the project was “actually not that good.”
Throughout these uncertain days, the protest truck has remained steadfastly focused on one particular aspect of the project: the potential demise of Confederation Creek. A tributary of Nose Creek, Confederation Creek runs along the bottom of the gulley (there is some debate over whether it’s a “real” creek versus mere diverted storm water, but either way it’s a beloved wetland that’s been there a long time). As the truck advertises, residents fear that 98 per cent of the trees surrounding the creek will be destroyed and the creek itself buried if current plans go ahead. Neighbourhood rallies and hot messes will likely ensue for some time.
Meanwhile, the protest truck abides. George Webber, who took this shot near James Fowler High School some weeks back, has never seen anybody driving it. “The protest truck is sort of a feral beast with a mind of its own,” he says. “It’s likely hibernating somewhere else now in the vast frontier of Highland Park.” Making a mark, no doubt, on the minds and hearts of locals who have some work ahead of them.