In the Outhouse [Beaverwood Sewage Treatment Plant]

[Thank you all for sticking with the blog during the ever-so-brief hiatus. Back in action!]

In my younger days, we were always in search for drinking spot in the woods. Why? Besides the long standing tradition of minors imbibing alcohol in the sticks, I figure it is a nice bridge between childhood and adulthood. You have the wild adventuring of youth and the absolute drunken wreck of being an adult (at least this is what we thought adulthood was at the time: an excuse to drink all the time).

We found one particular place which we called Beaver Lodge, because in our drunken stupor, we had misread the name on the nearby Beaverwood Sewage Treatment Plant which is on the outskirts of Gander, located between the Anglican Cemetery and Walmart. Yes it stunk and yes it STUNK. But it was something to call our own, and we made quite the weekend home of Beaver Lodge.

And now it has come back to me because I write a blog about inadvertently dirty things in Newfoundland. Now naming a sewage treatment plant Beaverwood makes sense. You have the beaver, the great Canadian icon, and its favorite food. And since a sewage treatment plant cannot discriminate between either gender’s pee, you have to name the place after both sexes genitals: the woman’s beaver and the man’s wood.

Ah. Sewage treatment plants. Role models for an equal society.