I remember the first time I ever stood on a dock on a lake in the Ontario vacation area of Muskoka during the 1950s. What a wonderful experience it was.
 
I recall looking enviously at the folks who drove around the lake in all manner of motor boats. They were mostly using outboard motors but some folks, the really rich folks, had “inboard” motor boats. In my estimation those inboard motor boats were the coolest of all.
 
I loved the way they looked, the cedar strapping gleaming with polish, the shine off the hardware used to tie up the boat. I loved the sound of the motors rumbling just under the water, the sound of power just waiting to be unleashed, and most of all I loved the smell.
I don’t know what it was exactly. There was always a special smell to the mixture of water, gasoline, oil and wooden docks. I’m not sure what all the elements were but for me it was intoxicating. It smelled like great happiness and the want of nothing more than this time on the lake.
 
In all my years I have never owned a boat or a waterfront cottage. I have been at plenty of them, though. It has always been a wonderful time.  But I realize now, even though I equate them with happiness and success, motor boats are killing our lakes. I did not know or think of it before and to be fair, who did?
 
These boats don’t just kill lakes. They pillage them. They violate them like we cannot even imagine. Everything in the lakes is destroyed by them, all the fish and the plants, and it isn’t just what is in the lake. It is a ripple effect to all that is around it. The animals, the natural vegetation and the earth itself.
 
When I was a kid I saw men fill gas tanks in their boats with a careless effort. I watched with great delight as they spilled gasoline thoughtlessly in the lake around the dock. Then they would pull on the string beside the motor to start it up and let it idle with the smoke from the oil mixture billowing around, exuding its exhilarating combination of sound and smell.
 
We now know these things are elements of destruction, not goodness.
 
Since those days in the ‘50s when I first took in the wonder of gasoline and oil-charged motors on the lakes, snowmobiles have become popular.
 
We also know the destruction these machines cause to the world of animals, which once had the winter environs to themselves. Regardless of the good work of well-meaning snowmobile clubs who spend many volunteer hours grooming trails, there is no stopping others from running animals down, disrupting hibernation and causing great harm to the woodland environment.
 
All around us in the world we have examples of what we should be doing to save our beautiful vacation lands. In Europe most lakes do not permit motor boats. If you were to come upon a holiday lake there, you would encounter a sea of sailboats. In winter, snowmobiles are banned from many areas in Europe.
 
Yet here we continue to encourage both kinds of machines. More motor boats and snowmobiles have been sold in the last couple of years than anytime in history. Canadians and Americans combined are spending more than $28 billion per year on snowmobiles alone.
 
We are creating even more kinds of loud, abrasive, mean machines capable of greater, faster and even crueler forms of destruction, such as personal watercraft machines and all-terrain vehicles.
 
If we really mean the things we say about helping the world, this is where to start in Canada. We don’t need government regulation, political lobbying, or famous actors on TV telling us not to use these machines.
 
All we need to do is stop using them. It doesn’t get much simpler than that.
 
Heino Molls is publisher of REM. Email [email protected].