Just about every year our community is shaken when a young person, believing they’re invincible, jumps into Lynn Canyon and suffers injury or death.
It’s a completely preventable tragedy that all of us – community leaders, elected councils and this newspaper – have failed to prevent.
Anecdotally, we know many of the deceased were reasonable, intelligent young people, which leaves us to assume they lost touch with their better judgment for a few, crucial moments.
A new series of signs emblazoned with phrases like: Your Fear Is Way Smarter Than You, and That Was Worth The Spinal Damage, Said No One Ever, are an attempt to counter those mental lapses with rational thought.
If the signs work, lives will be saved.
With steep terrain, fluctuating water levels and underwater eddies, Lynn Canyon rescues can become logistical nightmares for emergency workers. We can’t change the environment, but maybe we can change a few minds.
By trying to engage their sense of humour and niggling internal doubt, the signs are an effort to talk to young people, not at them.
The old signs were sensible and well-placed but they failed, perhaps because anyone willing to hop a fence likely regards a forbidden act as part of the thrill. We don’t know if the new signs will prove more effective, but we applaud the District of North Vancouver for finding a new approach to deal with an old problem.
If the new signs work like we hope they will, our best story of the summer may be one we don’t write.
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