Tuesday, May 24, 2011

A Sketch



On May 9, the power went out in all of the Southern Yu
kon for a good portion of the day, downed, if you can believe it, by a squirrel who infiltrated the . The below news story detailed the event. You can read the whole thing here. It's hard to pick a
favourite quote from the story.

Two of my favourites:

-—"All the power generated by its Whitehorse plants flows through this point.

The substation is enclosed by a chain link fence, and lined with a wooden squirrel guard to keep rodents out.

'But this squirrel was persistent,' said Yukon Energy Corporation spokesperson Janet Patterson. "


"'As far as I’m concerned our power grid is like that of a Third World country.' [ Gordon Clark, owner of the Whitehorse Boston Pizza, who estimated he lost $1,500 in sales]"


Both of these are good, but the most delicious quote is this:

"For all those who doubt the official explanation, the News received a photo of the dead animal, but Yukon Energy wouldn’t permit it to be published.

'It’s a pretty charred squirrel,' said Patterson. 'I don’t think it’s something the public wants to see.'"



I am not great at keeping up with the local news, but I was filling blue jugs with water at the laundromat and shower down the hill when I ran into someone while they were reading this article, and as he read he started laughing out loud. I asked him what was so funny and he read the quote to me. My response, given the larger news headlines from the previous week, was something like:

"Maybe they didn't want to inflame sentiment in moderate squirrels who are sympathetic to squirrel jihadists."

And the guys laughed again and said that's exactly what had made him laugh. We then both wondered if the news writer had put this little gem of a 'graf in fully aware of how darkly funny it was. I can't imagine they they weren't.

Anyways, I love this place, third world power grid and all.

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