Canada Day, Lobster Traps, and Redistribution of the Earth's Mass

Today is Canada Day (in Canada only).  I think that almost everything is closed except for bars.  Lunenburg hosted a Canada Day celebrations from 11:00AM to 1:00PM and Rich & Helen and Wayne & Val rode with Carol Ann and me.  It was to be held behind the firehouse but when we got there all we saw was a sign announcing a change in location due to the rain.  It had been moved to the Community Center.  We had no idea where that was so we followed a carload of people who were just in front of us reading the sign.  Unfortunately, it turned out that they were not going to the Community Center after all.  Once we were a couple of miles from downtown the car we were following pulled into a service station.  We decided to stop and check a map, after which, we did manage to find our way to the Community Center.  There were free hot dogs, hamburgers, juice boxes, and watermelon being served and live music for entertainment.  It wasn’t long before we ran into others from our group (Barb, Donny, Gwen, Bill, Margie, Wayne, and Connie).

The entertainment was a local folk group (guitars, mandolin, banjo, etc.) that kept everyone entertained by singing folk songs with a little bit of the Kingston Trio and Johnny Cash thrown in.   They were actually quite good.  Many of the songs were very familiar to everyone so there was a lot of singing along with the group.  The name of the group was “Midlife Crisis,” which was changed from “The Problem” once they realized there was more than one problem (doesn’t make much sense but that’s what they said).

The sun was shining when we left the Community Center so we returned to the RV Park and everyone went their separate ways to try and cram in some more sight seeing while the weather was nice.  Carol Ann and I drove to the small coastal village of Riverport where we had heard there were a lot of old sea captains’ houses (the houses were old – the sea captains were dead).  We also drove along Rose Bay for a bit and then went to The Ovens Nature Park to see the sea caves.  We had to walk quite a bit along a cliff-top trail in order to see the caves but it was worth it.  We made it back to the RV Park a little after 6:00PM, grabbed a couple of beers, and joined a group that was sitting out in camp chairs.  We had only been there about 10 minutes when it began to rain, which was a good excuse to go back inside the motorhome and crash.

During the short time that we sat with the group Harvey was showing off the wooden lobster trap that he had purchased.  There are a lot of these old traps around that have been replaced by more modern ones of metal and plastic.  Harvey’s trap even came with two nice looking rocks to weight it down on the sea floor.  Harvey only paid $25 for it, which included the rocks.  I saw one on eBay for $65 and it didn’t come with the rocks!

He may need to declare it to the US customs officers when we return to the US.  He shouldn’t have any trouble even though he doesn’t have a receipt for it.  Of course, he doesn’t have a lobster license either.  I really do hope that he isn’t required to have one because they can be kind of expensive.  A lobster fishing license in Canada can cost around $200,000 as a one-time fee plus a couple of thousand a year to keep it renewed.  Of course, most lobster fishermen have a lot more than one trap.  Harvey is from Florida so I checked to see what a lobster license would cost him in Florida.  It is much less than it would be in Canada.  Florida only charges a resident’s fee of $50 for a saltwater license plus $125 per year per trap.  It’s a good thing he only has one trap.

Helen also has a rock that she plans on taking back to Iowa.  It is a very special rock that she picked up in the small fishing community of Blue Rocks.  The rocks there have a blue hue to them.  However, she did not purchase this rock.  She “found” hers beneath a “Do Not Pick Up the Rocks” sign.  She will either have to declare her rock at the border or not declare it and hope that the customs people don’t see it.  I think there is some kind of law against removing “Natural Elements” from Canada.  I was unable to find the actual law but I did find a New Zealand law and since Canada and New Zealand have a connection with Great Britain they may have similar laws.  New Zealand’s law states that “whosoever steals: (a) any rock or rocks, (b) any stone or stones, or (c) any gravel, soil, sand, or clay, that is or are in, on or under, or forms or form part of any land shall, on conviction by the Local Court, be liable for imprisonment for 6 months, or to pay a fine of 5 penalty units, or both.”  I don’t know what penalty units are but 6 months in the pokey would be rough for stealing a rock.  I do hope that Canada does not have a similar law for Helen’s sake.

You see, if enough people do what Helen has done it could have a drastic effect upon the earth.  I know that many tourists like to take souvenir rocks, sand, or dirt home with them from places that they visit.  But just follow me through this.  Rocks, sand, and dirt have mass, or weight, right?  If you accept this premise, then you must also agree that due to this common practice of moving rocks, sand, and dirt from one geographic location to another, the mass, or weight, of the earth is being redistributed.  With me so far?  It’s not rocket science.  You pick up a rock in Canada and transport it to Iowa and you have redistributed a little bit of the earth’s mass.  If enough people do this, it could amount to more than a “little bit”.  Remember, the earth is spinning (like a top, or a basketball with a stick through it) on an axis as it travels in its orbit around the sun.  If you transfer weight from one location to another on this spinning, almost round, object, then that spinning, almost round, object is going to start wobbling.  Right?  If the wobbling were to get bad enough the earth just might begin to tumble out of its orbit around the sun and shoot off into space and then we are dead meat!

In relation to this redistribution problem you should know that large parts of Canada (particularly the Hudson Bay region) are already “missing” some gravity, probably as a result the redistribution of the earth’s mass that I mentioned in the above paragraph.  How can Canada be “missing” some gravity, you say?  Any school kid knows that gravity is proportional to mass.  So when the mass of an area is made smaller, gravity is made smaller.  And when people move rocks from the USA to Canada they are reducing the mass of Canada, thus reducing Canada’s gravity.  So if you would like to weigh less you should move to the Hudson Bay region.