The Coonridge Digest: “As the World Melts”

Greetings from the Ridge.

He was squat, chunky, and waddled more than walked. The little fellow had jowls that dropped down below his chin and he wore an expression somewhere between sadness and the desire to pick a good fight. His feet were splayed outward, making him look a bit like a duck on dry land, and his eyelids dropped so far over his pupils that you wondered how the poor thing could see.

I don’t ever remember seeing an uglier dog.

Our county has an animal control officer that keeps Santa’s rounds, appearing about once a year, so a stray like Chester could show up and stay for whole seasons at a time without attracting the notice of the government.

Chester seemed a nice enough dog and he was there every Sunday morning at church waiting for someone to pet him and take him home.

Nobody did. We’re still stuck in the old-fashioned "dogs are not people" mode in Coonridge and Chester looked the type to eat a person out of house and home if given a warm place to sleep and a large enough bowl.

I have no idea how Chester survived on the streets, but I’ve a suspicion that some little girl was secretly feeding him out the back door once Mom had cleared the supper dishes. He was a good dog, just ugly – and unwanted.

Then the article appeared in the paper. "Lost: in the vicinity of Coonridge, an English bulldog named Lord Pembroke. Reward: $2500." You could hear the doors slamming all over town as every able-bodied citizen hit the street in search of Chester… or rather, Lord Pembroke.

Our town’s ugly little mutt had suddenly inherited not only a title but a value worth chasing down.

I thought of Chester Lord Pembroke last week when the Prime Minister of Canada announced that his government would add 5,400 square kilometers of land to Canada’s Nahanni National Park Reserve, and backed up the claim with a military threat or two. This was in response to Russia’s claim that this same land was an extension of Russia itself. Denmark also has made claims on the patch of ground.

Norway has chimed in. The United States, despite President Reagan’s failure to sign the 1982 U.N. Law of the Sea Convention, which might have settled things, has claimed that we have rights to the territory.

In short, everybody wants the North Pole. What was once the ugly mutt of continents, good for nothing much more than weather stations and National Geographic Adventure specials has suddenly become the Club Med of the North. The reason? Bucks, baby, big bucks. Perhaps as much as 25% of the world’s undiscovered oil and gas, valuable commodities like gold and diamonds, fishing stocks, and lucrative freight routes are at stake and suddenly everybody wants to bring Chester home and claim him as one of the family.

The reason for Chester’s sudden improvement in appearance is the recent thawing of the Arctic. Oh, I know, I know… there is no such thing as global warming, it’s just been a hot summer… or decade… or century. As a result of this "fluke" 460,000 square miles of Arctic seabed is in the process of being accessible due to the disappearance of the ice above it.

Each vying country has apparently hired its own team of lawyers, each team with its various tactics. Canada claims it has the best geographic attachment and plans to spend $7 billion on new Arctic patrol vessels, Denmark and Norway claim the Lomonosov Ridge on which the continent sits, Russia has sent a submarine to prove that the entire Arctic is a part of the Russian landmass, and the U.S. just doesn’t want anyone else to take Chester home.

It’s become a soap opera of the tundra, an "As the World Melts" adventure story with a bit of military bravado thrown in to keep the viewers interested. It all makes me wonder about a world where little atolls of land suddenly poke up out of the Pacific causing battleships all over the world to rush head-long toward the treeless islands to stake their claim. Don’t laugh. The Russians have actually planted their national flag, encased in titanium, on the seabed below the North Pole.

Russians subs sneaking under the ice, Canadian patrollers on the surface, the sole icebreaker left in the U.S. fleet chugging its way toward the icebox? If there is indeed no global warming, the appearance of Chester at the North Pole might just heat things up a bit.

You ever in Coonridge, stop by. We may not answer the door, but you’ll enjoy the trip.