Lynn Canyon has always been a place apart on the North Shore.
For more than 70 years, teens have come to the canyon to test themselves against the elements in an environment of otherworldly beauty. The canyon’s danger has always been part of its lure.
Those who come to jump the pools in the canyon in a route known as “the circuit” are young, still in the thrall of what psychologists refer to as “personal fable”: Bad things happen to others but they won’t happen to me.
But bad things do happen, as they tragically did again this past weekend when an international student jumped to his death after being pinned underwater in one of the pools.
He joins a list of young people who have died in similar circumstances in Lynn Canyon.
Jumping from the canyon has always existed in a grey area. For the past two decades, authorities have taken the approach of warning and education rather than enforcement. For the most part it has worked.
But who comes to the canyon and the risks they take has also changed in the past 20 years. Today, social media is full of glamorous, exciting photos of cliff jumping.
Those taking risks don’t have the local knowledge they might have in the past about when to avoid the canyon — the times high water moves rocks and creates deadly currents that can pull swimmers under.
They come with GoPros and iPhones that add to peer pressure to make deadly decisions.
There are no easy answers about how to prevent death in the canyon. Based on statistics, the “harm reduction” approach taken by authorities so far appears sound.
But it isn’t foolproof.
That will be little comfort for the family of the young man who was the canyon’s most recent victim.
We hope it will give pause to others — those who showed up to the pools to jump as soon as the canyon’s last victim was recovered. All thinking: it couldn’t happen to me.
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