The town has shut down. The kids have been time off school. Stores are closed. There's a huge line up outside the high school where David is going to speaker. People are spilling over to a side room where a video feed has been set up. Teenagers desperate to have their pictures taken with the Doc are besieging the bus. This town has Suzukimania. We're just hoping nobody faints.

The only downer is, we ran into heavy snow coming down from Kelowna and had to change our route, se we're late and running behind and we have to cut our lunch date with the Chief and Elders of the Upper and Lower Similkameen First Nations short. The event's supposed to have started by the time David accept a beautiful native drum from them and we have to beat it up the hill to the school and rush onto the platform.

So I haven't had a lot of time to register the enormity of this crowd or the mood they're in before I stand at the podium and start to welcome the crowd... and I stop dead. Because staring at me are nearly 700 shining faces sending out a shockwave of energy. Thnis is a town that has just successfully helped scuttle plans for a coal-burning power plant in their backyard and they are ready to celebrate. But that's not what took me aback. There was such a feeling of anticipation, eagerness, intelligence. These aren't Suzuki zombies engaging in blind hero-worship. This is a crowd that has just learned how powerful they are when they all work together - native, non-native, community groups, business, civic government - and they want to know what the do next. They've just had the equivalent of a clean air near-death experience that has galvanized them as a community to help fight global warming and they want to hear some solutions they can act on.

The Doc, of course, was on fire and he gave them things they could do - vote for the environment, talk to the candidates and grill them on climate change, join the Nature Challenge and much more. And the folks were with him, cheering and applauding and leaping to their feet at the end for a prolonged standing ovation. And the questions were about what more they could do.

The reception has been the same everywhere on this tour. There is something happening out there in Canada. It's an awe-inspiring dynamic and I've been trying to figure out just what it is - what is the wellspring for this overwhelming consensus on climate change?

The nearest example I can think of may seem a bit surprising. In 1992 and 1993, there was a sudden, profound wave of support for Preston Manning and the Reform Party. Why did that happen? I think Manning tapped into the feeling of disempowerment people had - that politicians weren't responding to the issues they felt were important. Well, the issues that are important have changed, but it appears that Canadians have that old feeling once again. And judging from the mood of the crowds turning out, they want substantive action right now. Not just from the politicians in Ottawa, but from their province, their community, their industries - in short, everybody. That's very exciting because it means that long after we have left town (if they let us leave - there's a phalanx of people wit digital cameras lined up beside the bus snapping pictures), the citizens of Princeton and its environs will be carrying on the conversation.

--Don Hauka, Communications guru