It’s a community.
It’s a song.
And it’s the legendary birthplace of the goat space program.
Picture, if you will, more than one million goats gathering in a bucolic mountain glade in Western Canada. Picture them gamely struggling to form an enormous living pyramid. Hundreds of layers of grunting, exhausted creatures piling atop one another in an unprecedented experiment in animate architecture.
Picture them, trembling but tenacious, straining to support thousands of tons on their spindly legs, but strengthened by a single, all-powerful vision: to lift up a quivering snout and, at long last, to touch the stars.
Now picture this same audacious undertaking, but with just seven goats. Seven brave pioneers striving to redefine the possible for an entire species. Seven ill-fated heroes with spirit and vision far greater than their mortal flesh. These, then, were the Kootenay Kickers.
I won’t go into the sad aftermath. Others have detailed the numerous setbacks the program suffered following this inspirational, though ultimately fruitless, first foray into the unknown. To me, this litany of failure isn’t what matters.
We may have yet to land a goat on the moon, or to view the Earth from atmospheric orbit, or even to achieve an altitude above several meters (without human assistance, at least).
But the dream lives on.
Thank you, KK7. Your sacrifices were not in vain.