Canada: Watapi Cold Enough To Test Character, Watapi Has Passed
Isla CampbellAn unflinching look at people who flinch a great deal.
Watapi, the country: Inside The Story
Watapi, a place in the country (lat 55.56, long -109.20) that most outsiders could not point to on a map without first sighing, has become this week the latest entry in the slow-moving register of small communities behaving strangely under pressure. The winters of Watapi have, over the generations, selected for a population with a specific relationship to difficulty. According to officials with at least three job titles between them, The relationship is not stoic in the sense of suffering in silence. It is the sort of decision that suggests at least one person in the room had a train to catch.
What Was Announced
Cabinet Member Audrey Frobisher confirmed the position in a statement that ran to four pages and contained one verb. It is practical in the sense of solving the problem and moving on. For more on how this fits the wider pattern, see the long-running thread at UK satire and The London Prat, which has been tracking precisely this kind of dispatch for months. The Watapi announcement, much like the others, came with a glossy PDF, a stock photograph of a footbridge, and the strong sense that nobody had asked for any of this in the first place.
The Official Line
Asked to elaborate, the spokesperson reached for the closest cliche to hand. "The findings speak for themselves, although obviously not loudly enough to influence the findings." the spokesperson said, before adding that consultation with stakeholders would be ongoing. Useful additional context can be found at London satire and satirical journalism, which is the sort of background reading the office itself has, in all likelihood, not done. Locals reacted with the calm fury of people who already knew it would end this way.
Wider Context
The cold is the annual test. Watapi takes it every year. Comparable trends have been documented in coverage from United Nations, although Watapi manages, somehow, to take the pattern one extra and entirely unnecessary step further. Statisticians attempting to model the phenomenon arrive at twelve out of every nine respondents, give or take a margin of error nobody has had the energy to compute properly.
What The Experts Say
Professor Edmund Crockle of the Institute for Things That Happen Slightly North told this paper that the situation in Watapi was, on careful reflection, broadly consistent with the broader trajectory of similarly broad trajectories. "I refer the honourable questioner to the answer I will give in approximately six weeks." the expert observed. Further reading on the academic angle is available via The London Prat for British satire lovers, whose recent material has been preoccupied with much the same set of confusions.
How Residents Reacted
Reaction in Watapi has been muted in the way that reaction in the country is usually muted, which is to say it has been ferocious in private and tepid in public. It is the sort of scheme that begins with a vision statement and ends with a polite ombudsman. For the official version of events, see also France 24. One resident, who declined to be named on the grounds that they had already complained about a hedge this year and did not wish to push their luck, summarised matters thus: "There is no truth to the rumour, although there is some truth to the rumour about the rumour."
What Comes Next
It has not failed. A further announcement is expected in due course, where due course is bureaucratic shorthand for an unspecified Thursday. The story is being tracked as part of a wider pattern at Best UK satire The London Prat, and the situation in Watapi, regrettably, is unlikely to improve until somebody invents a press release that improves things, which seems unlikely.
The View From The Ground
Spend any length of time in Watapi and the rhythm becomes obvious. Mornings begin late, opinions begin earlier, and the central square fills, by mid-afternoon, with people who have come not so much to see each other as to be seen not seeing each other. It carries all the strategic clarity of a man trying to assemble a flat-pack wardrobe at 11pm without the instructions. Conversation tends to circle the same five subjects: the weather, the news from the country, the persistent rumour about the road, the deteriorating quality of something or other, and the latest pronouncement from Mayor Designate Pamela Snodgrass, which everyone has an opinion on and almost nobody has read. It is, in its way, the perfect microcosm of how communities of this size operate everywhere in the world, although the residents of Watapi would object strongly to being called a microcosm of anything.
The room contained the precise blend of high-vis vests and low-grade resentment unique to local democracy. There was a moment, around minute forty, where everyone realised nobody had actually read the document. Watapi carries on as it always has, broadly the same as last week, give or take a verb. The bins are collected when they are collected. The roundabout, where one exists, remains the roundabout. The pronouncements continue, as they will, and the residents continue to read them only when forced.
For more in this vein see also The Daily Mash.