TWENTY YEARS AGO HORNBY ISLAND'S Carole Chambers washed diapers with a toilet plunger in a wash tub over a campfire. She had no electricity, no running water and her first vegetable garden failed because she hadn't realized Hornby Island is mostly sandstone. Today the poet and environmental activist lives in a big, comfortable log house surrounded by a lush, seaweed fed garden. As her resources and local knowledge have grown, so has her awareness of dangers threatening the Strait of Georgia such as nuclear submarines, pulp mill effluent, oil tankers and sewage. "The Strait of Georgia is very slow to flush," she explains, "You have to realize that the top is almost closed by Johnstone Strait and the bottom is almost closed by the dog's leg of Juan de Fuca." To help raise funds for the Save the Georgia Strait Alliance, Chambers has written the poetry for From the Gulf, a follow-up to a 1998 poetry collection from Quadrant Editions. Chambers' "small attempt to give something back" is available for $5 from numerous coastal book outlets or direct from Moonsnail Press, St. Johns Point Rd. Hornby Island, B.C. VOR 1Z0. Plans for the Save Georgia Straits Alliance were first outlined on a pub napkin overlooking the scenic Crofton pulp mill. Since 9990 it has sponsored two "Save the Strait" marathons in which swimmers, paddlers and sailors race across the strait and an international conference on the health of the inland sea. It represents 75 organizations and has 1,000 members. "We have to start looking after our little bit of ocean," says Chambers.

[BCBW, Autumn, 1992] "Environment"