In America small towns seem to be dying. If they are not converted into bedroom communities of larger towns or cities, they seem to be becoming ghost towns. Nebraska and the Dakotas have many examples of this and this phenomenon is also to be seen in Central and Eastern Washington. The reasons usually given are that the youth of the communities cannot not find work, and therefore have to move to places of greater economic activity.

In early August I had an opportunity to see a place where this doesn’t seem to be happening. Imagine a community of about 30,000 that has no surrounding communities within 6 hours distance, and no communities that speak the same language within 12 hours by car to communicate with. In the summer communications, by car is available two times a day, but in the winter communications by car is restricted to twice a week!

In spite of this isolation the community has four new car dealerships, a high school the size of any of Federal Way’s and a community college! There didn’t appear to be any run down housing and new construction was evident. There was no evidence of any graffiti, or other crime, and I didn’t see a single police car, although there was a police station.

One has to ask, how is this possible? Could this be a community that has recognized that its continued existence depends upon having a workforce that is trained to meet the needs of the community? I would like to suggest that this might be the case. There are just two major industries in this community, fishing and tourism. Tourism is restricted to the summer, I would guess, and the fishing is regulated to a few specific months of the year.

Nice cars, nice houses, nice boats and evidently a nice enough atmosphere to retain its youth in a constructive way! What an idea!

Where is this? Iles des Madelines is a small set of islands in the Gulf of St. Lawrence. The language spoken is French as the islands are part of Quebec. To get to, or from, the Iles one has to arrive one hour before the sailing of the ferry, it runs twice a day, on a 5 hour ferry ride. Total time for crossing is close to 6 and one half hours counting the waiting, loading and unloading time. When you get off the ferry, leaving the Iles, you are on Prince Edward Island, not Quebec, and the language spoken on PEI is English. You have at least another 4 hours drive from the ferry dock until you will encounter any more French speakers.

What can the high school on the Iles be like? It has to serve this community well if the children are to remain on the Iles. What about “Interscholastic Sports?” I think we can forget this distraction with a transportation situation is faced here. The closest French speaking high school to this one is over 10 hours away! The closest English speaking high school is at least 7 hours away, and we need to remember that the ferry only runs twice a week in the heart of winter. I would like to suggest that this distraction from formal education is nearly missing.

I would also like to suggest that there is probably a much for “Focused” student body on the Iles who are geared towards acquiring skills that would be useful on the Iles. Gee, isn’t this what all high schools were designed for?

Where have we gone wrong? Clearly our high schools aren’t focused on the skills that would train our children for productive lives in South Puget Sound, and we have “drop-outs” that do not have the skills to function in our area. Maybe this is why we have housing that isn’t up to the standards of the Iles and youth who seem to have found being destructive a viable life style.

My hat’s off the adults of Iles des Madelines!