Fifty Shades of Black by Arthur Black

Author:Arthur Black
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: humour, short stories, comedy, anecdotes
Publisher: D & M Publishers
Published: 2013-08-22T16:00:00+00:00

The Naked Truth

Ten years ago, a war broke out on Salt Spring. The People versus Texada Land Corporation, an Alberta-based consortium, and the bone of contention was five thousand acres of pristine, undeveloped Salt Spring forest. The stakes were high and simple: Texada wanted to clear-cut the land and sell off the bald lots. The people thought not.

The war was fought in all the usual ways that non-shooting wars go. Sit-ins. Rallies. Songs were sung, speeches were made, letters were written, politicians were poked to see if they could be dislodged from their fences. Mort Ransen, the filmmaker who gave us Margaret’s Museum and a long-time resident of the island, put out a hilarious, biting documentary called The Money, The Money, The Money (which was the explanatory mantra actually chanted by one of the Texada owners when asked why a Calgary company had the hots for Salt Spring timber—but I digress).

All the usual protest bases were covered but there was a serious lack of cash. Protests cost money. How to raise it? Someone said: Why not put out a calendar? Why not . . . a nude calendar?

Sounds pretty mundane now—nude calendars for charity are a dime a dozen these days—but a decade ago, this was provocative stuff. And Salt Spring was pretty much a perfect springboard for a nude calendar. For one thing, the island had Howard Fry, an internationally famous fashion photographer, lately retired, who was willing to lend his talents. For another thing, the island had the, uh, requisite natural resources for a nude calendar. Beautiful women. Lots of them. Too many, in fact, for a mere twelve-month calendar, as it turned out. In the end, thirty-seven amateur but passionate models made the final cut. They were photographed by island lakes, in island farmyards, on island mountaintops and peeping out of island old growth. All natural surroundings and all au naturel.

Was it successful? It was a sensation. The story was picked up by the Vancouver Sun, then The Globe and Mail, then Harper’s Magazine. Popular, too. Over a hundred thousand dollars was raised from calendar sales. Which contributed significantly to the successful resolution of the Salt Spring/Texada Corp. war. The Calgary developers were sent packing (albeit with a fat cheque in their carpetbag); the land was saved and covenanted against future depredation. As a matter of fact, I took my dogs for a walk through part of it the other morning. Saw one blue heron, two eagles, a family of otters, several deer . . . and zero logging trucks.

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