UXO: Unexploded eXplosive Ordinance! Here is a portrait of me my wife snapped. I am standing next to a warning sign on the border of a UXO site. And I am holding a UXO.
The sign is real. It's one of about a dozen along the stretch of Long Beach between Uclulet and Tofino on Vancouver Island. Back in the day before either town catered to tourists, Long Beach was considered remote enough for weapons training for the military, and the beach was repeatedly bombed, mortared, grenaded, and shelled.
Now the beach is part of a national park. Unfortunately, the Ministry responsible doesn't have the budget to remove all of the UXO's, so they put up some signs and hope for the best. I've done my patriotic duty by taking care of the bomb pictured above.
Well, there is more to the story. According to the military, there is no technology available that will completely clear an area of UXO's. Likely, Long Beach is clear by now, but it's better to be safe. The government was hard-pressed to clean up the debris left on our shores from the recent Japanese tsunami. There is a marsalling area set up for the public who find debris. My wife found a plastic container for Japanese vegetables floating on the surf.
And the bomb, of course, isn't a real bomb. It's another piece of debris, likely part of a crab trap float. I put the BOMB label on with Photoshop. It's silly.
Today is Friday the thirteenth, traditionally Ungood Art day here on JSVB. I'll post artwork that I've made that just isn't very good. In this case, my wife took the picture, but I directed her.
Below is a close-up of the UXO sign. You can go to the website and check out what the Canadian government has to say about unexploded bombs, complete with a bizarre little cool-io hip-hop cartoon bomb mascot I wish I'd drawn (the mascot is on the website, not this sign).
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