This week and into next the Perseid meteors – named after the Greek mythological hero Perseus – have more to offer us than ephemeral blazes across night skies. Ancient lessons, after all, are immortalized in constellations gazing down at our little Earth.
Take the story of Perseus. Against all odds, the hero vanquished Medusa – a monster with vipers for hair and whose eyes turned to stone anyone who dared look. To accomplish the feat, Perseus used a mirror to guide his sword. In the end, his strength, character and ingenuity prevailed.
Thanks to COVID-19, across Canada it seems so many Medusas are testing communities’ character, including right here on the Sunshine Coast in an unlikely piece of paradise – the slopes of Granthams Landing. Tucked below the neighbourhood’s historic hillside homes is the members-only Granthams Wharf. The skinny little thing is a hidden pearl of Shoal Channel.
It is loved. Members of the Gibsons Wharf Association have raised money for insurance and maintenance since the 1960s. “We are the keepers, the protectors,” Nicky Grafton, the association’s president, told Coast Reporter.
But in the throes of the pandemic, that love risked deteriorating into protectionism. “We had a real disagreement within the membership early on in the spring,” Grafton said. Some members “really didn’t want to open the wharf this year because of COVID.”
People worried groups intermingling on the narrow dock would transmit the disease. So, Grafton said, members turned to another legacy of ancient Greece: “We had to poll the membership.”
Its outcome: “The message from the majority was to open it and trust that everyone is going to be careful and keep each other safe.”
But fortune is now testing the trust of the good people of Granthams.
In July and August, non-members have mobbed the wharf.
At times more than 20 people have squeezed onto its narrow planks. Parties of young people have been crowding members out, “with no social distancing and dangerous physical play, lots of rudeness, loud music [and] swearing,” Grafton said. “It’s gotten out of control this year.”
The members are fearful once more. On top of COVID, they’re concerned about liability, about access. They’re talking about installing a gate. The conflict has them scrambling for a hero.
So the RCMP were alerted. Patrols would be stepped up. They could call 911.
But the good people of Granthams are also prioritizing another tactic – one that could prove far more effective than calling the cops.
The association has formed a “wharf watch” team. Members armed with talking points are volunteering to address those crowds, to speak directly with trespassers and mischief-makers. To bridge the outsider divide with dialogue, like a mirror held to Medusa, they’re asking people to reflect on their actions.
Grafton said so far results have been mixed. But de-escalation takes practice.
It requires strength, character and ingenuity. It’s a real, heroic, against-all-odds effort.
And if it works, maybe in the tangle of COVID conflicts that risk poisoning goodwill and community, the wharf watchers of Granthams will reveal what the constellations can teach us.
