How would Sam Steele have dealt with BP?

Despite being unusually busy I have read and enjoyed numerous books lately (as always),  and sometimes while perusing  "The Silvicture  and Management of Coppice Woodlands"   or the rather excellent Woodland Way by Ben Law, I have paused and thought " Oh I must mention that in a blog". Sometimes I mention these interesting things to my partner and sometimes she answers.
Anyway I was feeling a bit stuck for a blog- so much is happening Springwise and everything else that I just could not find something to focus in on- as I say so much is happening at the moment- then from the pages of a book the woodfuel message leapt out, relevant to modern society and potentially accompanied by astonishing photos. I think we all know that they can be an important component for a good blog.

News on the radio this morning that the amount of oil leaking into the Gulf of Mexico is potentially double the amount previously estimated was accompanied by BP's share price rising 7%, as investors hope the American President is going to stop shouting at BP.

Yesterday I was reading of how BP's emergency plan for containment of a leak in the gulf were so detailed  they not only included plans for cleaning Walruses, inhabitants of sub Artic regions rather than the Florida coastline, but also listed a Japanese home shopping website as one of its "Primary equipment providers .....for rapid deployment in spill response resources on a 24 hour, seven days a week basis". The author of the article I was reading suggested that perhaps the whole document had been cut and pasted from a plan for Alaska.
Anything else - Oh Yes  I remember - Number Crunching Private Eye No 1262-

£6 - Hourly payment by BP to volunteers clearing up after oil spill.
£1.500- Hourly pay of BP Boss Tony " Its not our accident" Hayward
£1,500,000- Hourly profits of BP in last quarter
I would like to say that all the above made me really angry about the way massive oil companies and large corporations in general behave as regards their environmental responsibilities, but I can no longer remember a time when I wasn't really angry about that, so no joy there then.

What has been quite interesting is seeing Barack Obama become annoyed at BP and enter to some degree uncharted territory, the thought of Dubya criticising BP and wishing to punish it is not one that comes easily.
I think I may have a suggestion for him......One of the books I was recently reading was about a really extraordinary period in the mid 1890's when an estimated 100,000 worldwide people gave up their jobs and lives to head for an extremely uncertain but potentially highly lucrative future in the Klondike.

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 These would be miners face a 33 mile over this pass and beyond to Dawson. The Mounties in a bid to avert starvation had a check point at the top and each person passing through had to have a ton of food and supplies with them. Carrying this up took a number of journeys or involved paying "packers".

Very few of them managed the (properly arduous) journey to the emerging town of Dawson in the Yukon in the short time frame when gold was still to be found, however that did not stop a lot of people from getting rich in some way or another during the glory years of Dawson and the Klondike. The whole thing is a real macrocosm of human society with all its attendant facets and I could go on for hours about it all, however I will allow myself to relate just one small nugget of woodfuel thought on the subject.   
That this huge influx of people into an area of barren, generally frozen wilderness did not just end in disaster or utter lawlessness was due very much to the fledgling Royal Canadian Mounted Police and in particular one man Sergeant Sam Steele who did indeed have a steely gaze when it came to came to controlling hordes of unruly (mostly American) miners.

  Sam Steele had negotiated with Sitting Bull before the Gold Rush took him to the Yukon.

Steele used two main punishments to keep law and order in Dawson,  one (a blue ticket) meant you were leaving town and the other meant you would be working on the government woodpile. This woodpile was incredible. It kept more than 50 prisoners busy morning to night, the police and Govt offices alone used enough wood to make a pile 2 miles long and 4 foot square, all of which had to be sawn into lengths by the prisoners who could be serving backbreaking 3 or 6 month sentences on the woodpile.
There is a story from the time of an American gambler who, on coming up before Steele was contemptuous when fined fifty dollars.
"Fifty dollars - is that all? I've got that in my vest pocket," he said.
Whereupon Sam Steele added "...and sixty days on the woodpile. Have you got that in your vest pocket?"

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An older Sam Steele- what a crazy hat! 

Now it occurs to me, in relation to punishing BP or wishing it and its ilk took more care with our environment that perhaps this approach would be better than fining them what will always be a small (oil) drop in the Ocean.
If corporate responsibility involved those responsible for these disasters personally and actively cleaning them up alongside all the people whose livelihoods have gone because of this slick, and alongside all those volunteers - there because they care, then perhaps some small glimmer of understanding and an actual feeling of responsibility and concern at the results of their negligence may eventually start to permeate these peoples lives. Who knows they may actually begin to care about the damage they do, rather than just the money they make- Either way it would worth finding out, just a month cleaning oil on the beach would probably do it for most of those BP fat cat's and they would always be truly welcome to work on my woodpile should they discover a previously unkown love for the outdoors. 

Good reading - Klondike - Pierre Berton,
Practical Forestry for the Agent and Surveyor- Cyril Hart 


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