MANNING PROVINCIAL PARK-- Human intervention and the musical lures of civilization are threatening the habitat and culture of one of Canada's magical species, the forest satyr. These peaceful, cloven-heeled woodlanders are in danger of losing their distinct identity if logging, highway construction, and the flashing lights of Big City continue their intrusion.
Canadian forest satyrs, like this one, straddle two worlds. Now protected under new conservation laws, will they choose their ancestral ways or be absorbed by the human economy? Forest satyrs were long thought to be creatures of legend, faerie tales invented to amuse children. But Indian tribes in the Southwest of British Columbia recited tales of fleet-footed musical beasts, half-man and half-goat, that lived amid the Douglas firs and the Sitka spruce. It wasn't until 1927 that a tribe of satyrs was found, living as they had for millenia--untouched by civilization--in the heart of Manning Park, a provincial forest only three hours from the city of Vancouver.
Ethnobiologists believe they are a remnant of the Atlantid group of Satyrs that fled West after the sinking of Atlantis, and that the larger Eastern group migrated towards Greece, where they were absorbed by the dominant culture by around 400 AD. Not surprising, the Greeks believe that ethnobiologists are extinct, and that Atlantis is a prospering island with many casinos.
"It was really quite a find when Horace Meid stumbled, quite by accident, on this lost tribe of satyrs," said Dr. Elizabeth Answorth, Head of Historical Creatures Studies at the University of British Columbia. "The satyrs were aware of humans, but chose to remain hidden, fearing that conservative Canadians would put an end to their unrestrained revelry. We think they may have been living too close to a Mennonite colony."
Until their discovery, the satyrs had spent centuries partying in peace--drinking, dancing, and chasing wood nymphs until dawn.
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Tribes of forest satyrs existed in Eastern Canada, but were consolidated onto reserves by the 1950s. Now they depend on tourism for a living. In the United States, colonists captured and imprisoned the entire American population of satyrs in the late 1790's, believing them to be tools of Satan. The last American satyr died in a travelling circus in 1886.
MANNING PROVINCIAL PARK-- Human intervention and the musical lures of civilization are threatening the habitat and culture of one of Canada's magical species, the forest satyr. These peaceful, cloven-heeled woodlanders are in danger of losing their distinct identity if logging, highway construction, and the flashing lights of Big City continue their intrusion.
