Dear Editor,
Having lived in Clinton once upon a time, and helped with the cataloguing of artifacts in the Clinton Museum, I read Barbara Roden’s reference to the odour in the livery stable there with amusement (“Editor’s Desk”, May 18, 2017). Barbara suggests an airing, before summer visitors arrive.
I am wondering how ranchers like Red Allison, the late Lloyd West, and other ranchers in the area, include our own Ken McKay of Desert Hills Ranch, would respond to Barbara’s suggestion? Manure, be it horse or cow, is part of the landscape.
During our three-year stay in Clinton, we lived across from the West Ranch. My mother came to visit, on her first outing into the B.C. interior.
I was proud to show her the garden I had created in the yard of our rented property. She stood at the gate and sniffed the air. “What is that smell?’ she asked, clearly not liking the odour.
Let me put it this way. When Jack and I went up to Terrace, B.C. to live for ten months, the first thing that I smelled was the odour of sawmills and smoke coming from the burners. We smelled the pungent odour of the pulp mills at Prince George as well, en route. When I complained about the odours to a long-time resident, she replied, “You are smelling the odour of money.”
Well, let me tell you, Barbara, I prefer the musky odour of manure any day to the other two.
Esther Darlington
Ashcroft, B.C.
