Saturday 8 February 2025
Eskişehir, Türkiye
Time is a river.
Its current carries us through moments of human striving — some triumphant, some tragic.
Each event, each life born into history on this day, speaks to a quest:
For truth, for escape, for justice, for a world beyond suffering.
But where does that journey end?
And is there such a thing as Nirvana for those who never reach the shore?
Now when Dawn in robe of saffron was hasting across the Earth, bringing light to mortals and immortals.
Homer, Illiad
Parinirvana Day, or Nirvana Day is a Buddhist holiday.
It is celebrated in East Asia, Vietnam and the Philippines.
Above: (in green) East Asia
Above: Flag of Vietnam
Above: Flag of the Philippines
By some it is celebrated on 8 February, but by most on 15 February.
In Bhutan, it is celebrated on the 15th day of the 4th month of the Bhutanese calendar.
Above: Flag of Bhutan
It celebrates the day when the Buddha is said to have achieved Parinirvana, or complete Nirvana, upon the death of his physical body.
In Buddhism, parinirvana describes the state entered after death by someone who has attained nirvana during their lifetime.
It implies a release from Saṃsāra, karma and rebirth as well as the dissolution of the skandhas.
In some Mahāyāna scriptures, notably the Mahāyāna Mahāparinirvāṇa Sūtra, parinirvāṇa is described as the realm of the eternal true Self of the Buddha.
In the Buddha in art, the event is represented by a reclining Buddha figure, often surrounded by disciples.
Above: Buddha’s Nirvana
In the Buddhist view, when ordinary people die, each person’s unresolved karma passes on to a new birth, and thus the karmic inheritance is reborn in one of the Six Paths of samsara.
However, when a person attains nirvana, they are liberated from karmic rebirth.
When such a person dies, it is the end of the cycle of rebirth.
Contemporary scholar Rupert Gethin explains:
Eventually ‘the remainder of life‘ will be exhausted and, like all beings, such a person must die.
But unlike other beings, who have not experienced ‘nirvāṇa‘, he or she will not be reborn into some new life, the physical and mental constituents of being will not come together in some new existence, there will be no new being or person.
Instead of being reborn, the person ‘parinirvāṇa-s’, meaning in this context that the five aggregates of physical and mental phenomena that constitute a being cease to occur.
This is the condition of ‘nirvāṇa without remainder of life‘:
Nirvāṇa that comes from ending the occurrence of the aggregates (skandha/khandha) of physical and mental phenomena that constitute a being or, for short, khandha-parinibbāna.
Modern Buddhist usage tends to restrict ‘nirvāṇa‘ to the awakening experience and reserve ‘parinirvāṇa‘ for the death experience.”
If life itself is the meaning of life, why the need for more lives?
Why do Buddhists speak of reincarnation as a cycle to be broken, rather than a gift to be embraced?
Buddhism’s notion of reincarnation, or more accurately samsara, is tied to the belief in the impermanence of all things.
The idea is not that life is insufficient, but that the mind — trapped by desires, attachments, and ignorance — cannot break free from the cycle of birth, death and rebirth.
In this view, life is not merely life itself.
Life is a school, a testing ground, a place to learn to transcend our desires, our illusions and our attachments.
Reincarnation, then, is not just about living again, but about the possibility of evolving, of perfecting oneself through successive lives.
The Buddha taught that suffering arises from ignorance, desire and attachment.
Reincarnation offers an opportunity to continually strip away these layers, moving ever closer to enlightenment — closer to Nirvana, where one is free from the cycle of rebirth.
Each life offers a chance to realize the truth of one’s nature and, ultimately, to break free from the illusion of separation and suffering.
In a sense, reincarnation is the hope that, through many lives, one might come to see life for what truly is — not something to be clung to, but something to be embraced and released, in a moment of perfect peace and understanding.
This samsara is not a punishment, but an opportunity, a series of chances to free the mind from the shackles of attachment, and perhaps it is here that the meaning of life unfolds — not in one singular life, but in the continuous dance of becoming and unbecoming.
Could the idea of reincarnation be seen not as a literal return, but as a metaphor for the countless ways in which we must learn and unlearn, again and again, before we can truly find peace?
I am reminded of the film Groundhog Day.
Groundhog Day is, in many ways, a modern parable of samsara —the Buddhist cycle of birth, death, and rebirth — trapped in repetition until true understanding is reached.
Phil Connors begins in a state of frustration, selfishness, and cynicism, forced to relive the same day repeatedly.
At first, he reacts with despair, then he indulges in hedonism, then he falls into hopelessness.
But it is only when he stops resisting, stops trying to escape his reality, and instead begins to live with kindness, purpose and gratitude that the cycle is broken.
The film suggests that liberation is not found in changing the external world but in changing oneself.
Phil does not escape 2 February by manipulating events to his advantage but by learning to bear reality, presently and selflessly.
He becomes attuned to the needs of others, appreciating the beauty in small moments, embracing each day as it comes.
In that sense, his long overdue 3 February is not just a new date, it is a new state of being.
Is this not the essence of enlightenment?
Not escape, but transformation?
Not the cessation of experience, but the cessation of resistance to it?
This then is the paradox of reincarnation — the tension between consequence and renewal, between responsibility and infinity.
If we embrace the idea that we will live again, do we risk treating this life lightly, as if it were a mere rehearsal for the next?
Does the notion of endless chances diminish the urgency of the present moment, the weight of our choices, the irreplaceable beauty of now?
Yet, if we reject reincarnation outright, how do we account for the sheer abundance of life — the billions of beings, each seemingly imbued with a spark of consciousness, each carrying its own joys and sufferings?
The idea that only this life matters can feel almost…
Limiting.
Is it not more wondrous to imagine that all these flickering flames —human, animal, plant, perhaps even the wind and the sea — are all part of something continuous, something eternal?
Perhaps the truth lies somewhere in between.
Perhaps reincarnation is not a license for carelessness but a call to mindfulness.
If we are to live again, should that not deepen our commitment to living well, knowing that every action, every kindness, every cruelty reverberates beyond this single existence?
And if we believe that all life has a soul, is that not an argument for reverence?
For the sacredness of every creature, every breath, every moment?
Whether we live once or many times, does each life — each experience — deserve to be lived as if it were the only one?
To see a world in a grain of sand,
And a Heaven in a wildflower,
Hold Infinity in the palm of your hand,
And Eternity in an hour.
William Blake, Auguries of Innocence
Above: English writer/artist William Blake (1757 – 1827)
Nirvana is the extinguishing of the passions, the “blowing out” or “quenching” of the activity of the grasping mind and its related unease.
Nirvana is the goal of many Buddhist paths, and leads to the soteriological release from dukkha (‘suffering‘) and rebirths in saṃsāra.
Aurora is the effort
Of the Celestial Face
Unconsciousness of Perfectness
To offer, to the Race.
Emily Dickinson
Above: American poet Emily Dickinson (1830 – 1886)
Nirvana, as the quenching of the burning mind, is the highest aim of the Theravada tradition.
In the Mahayana tradition, the highest goal is Buddhahood, in which there is no abiding in nirvana.
Passages from the recitations of Nibbana Sutta or Nirvana Sutra describing the Buddha’s last days of life are often read on Parinirvana Day.
Other observances include meditation and visits to Buddhist temples and monasteries.
Also, the day is a time to think about one’s own future death and on the deaths of loved ones.
This thought process reflects the Buddhist teachings on impermanence.
Some Western Buddhist groups also celebrate Parinirvana Day.
“At dawn he rose with his eyes shining and wandered around in a frenzy, thinking he was going to find it.“
Jack Kerouac, On the Road
Above: American writer Jack Kerouac (1922 – 1969)
But for me, I don’t think the importance of Nirvana waited until the Buddha’s moments before dying.
Nirvana, in the Buddhist sense, is the cessation of suffering, the extinguishing of desire and attachment, and the release from the cycle of rebirth (samsara).
Parinirvana, celebrated on Nirvana Day, marks the moment when the Buddha himself passed beyond all worldly suffering into ultimate liberation.
In a way, it is both an end and a beginning — an end to suffering, a beginning of an existence beyond our comprehension.
Buddhism teaches that Siddhartha Gautama, the Buddha, reached Nirvana through a profound journey of self-discovery, perseverance, and enlightenment.
His path was one of both struggle and revelation, ultimately revealing the nature of suffering and the way to transcend it.
At the violet hour, when the eyes and back
Turn upward from the desk, when the human engine waits
Like a taxi throbbing waiting
T. S Eliot, The Wasteland
Above: American-born British poet Thomas Stearns Eliot (1888 – 1965)
Born a prince in the 5th or 6th century BCE, Siddhartha Gautama lived in luxury, shielded from suffering by his father. However, when he encountered the Four Sights — an old man, a sick man, a dead man, and an ascetic — he was deeply shaken.
Realizing that suffering was inescapable, he abandoned his royal life in search of truth.
He pursued extreme asceticism, nearly starving himself in an attempt to conquer bodily desires.
Yet, after years of self-denial, he found that neither indulgence nor self-mortification led to true understanding.
This realization led him to the Middle Way — a path of balance between extremes.
Light, my light, the world-filling light, the eye-kissing light,
Heart-sweetening light!
Ah, the light dances, my darling, at the center of my life.
Rabindranath Tagore, Gitanjali
Above: Indian polymath Rabindranath Tagore (1861 – 1941)
Imagine the Bodhi tree, its wide branches spreading over Siddhartha as he sits in deep meditation.
The night is long, his mind is tested by Mara, the demon of illusion, who tempts him with desire, fear, and doubt.
Yet, Siddhartha remains still, unwavering.
As he sees the truth of existence, he touches the earth, calling it to witness his awakening.
At age 35, Siddhartha sat beneath the Bodhi tree in Bodh Gaya, vowing not to rise until he attained enlightenment.
Over the course of the night, he experienced profound visions:
- The First Watch: He saw all his past lives, spanning countless existences.
- The Second Watch: He gained insight into the karmic cycle — how beings are reborn according to their deeds.
- The Third Watch: He understood the Four Noble Truths, which explain the nature of suffering (dukkha), its cause (craving and attachment), its cessation (Nirvana), and the path leading to its end (the Noble Eightfold Path).
As dawn broke, Siddhartha Gautama became the Buddha, “the Awakened One“, having reached Nirvana — a state beyond suffering, beyond desire, beyond self.
Nirvana is often described as the extinguishing of the flames of desire, aversion and ignorance.
It is not a place but a state of being — free from the cycle of birth and rebirth (samsara).
Some schools of Buddhism view Nirvana as a complete cessation of existence, while others interpret it as a state of unshakable peace and wisdom.
“The sky was not merely of another colour, it was another sky.
At the hour when, even in a town, one has the impression that the first light of day has for a moment swept everything clean and removed the veil of shadow, making the streets and the houses emerge as if newly created, I was in the country, where the miracle of daybreak is still more striking.“
Marcel Proust, Time Regained
Above: French writer Marcel Proust (1871 – 1922)
Sir Sandford Fleming once dreamed of taming time itself.
Sir Sandford Fleming (1827 – 1915) was a Scottish Canadian engineer and inventor.
Above: Sandford Fleming
Born and raised in Scotland, he immigrated to colonial Canada at the age of 18.
He promoted worldwide standard time zones, a prime meridian and use of the 24-hour clock as key elements to communicating the accurate time, all of which influenced the creation of Coordinated Universal Time.
He designed Canada’s first postage stamp, produced a great deal of work in the fields of land surveying and map making, engineered much of the Intercolonial Railway and the first several hundred kilometers of the Canadian Pacific Railway, and was a founding member of the Royal Society of Canada and founder of the Canadian Institute (a science organization in Toronto).
Above: Flag of Canada
In 1827, Fleming was born in Kirkcaldy, Fife, Scotland to Andrew and Elizabeth Fleming.
Above: Images of Kirkcaldy, Fife, Scotland
At the age of 14 he was apprenticed as a surveyor.
In 1845, at the age of 18, he immigrated with his older brother David to colonial Canada.
Their route took them through many cities of the Canadian colonies: Québec City, Montréal, and Kingston, before settling in Peterborough, Ontario with their cousins two years later in 1847.
Above: Québec City, Québec, Canada
Above: Montréal, Québec, Canada
Above: City Hall, Kingston, Ontario, Canada
Above: Lift Lock, Peterborough, Ontario, Canada
Fleming qualified as a surveyor in Canada in 1849.
In 1849 he created the Royal Canadian Institute with several friends, which was formally incorporated on 4 November 1851.
Although initially intended as a professional institute for surveyors and engineers it became a more general scientific society.
In 1851 he designed the Threepenny Beaver, the first Canadian postage stamp, for the Province of Canada (today’s southern portions of Ontario and Quebec).
Throughout this time he was fully employed as a surveyor, mostly for the Grand Trunk Railway (1852 – 1923).
His work for them eventually gained him the position as Chief Engineer of the Northern Railway of Canada in 1855, where he advocated the construction of iron bridges instead of wood for safety reasons.
Fleming served in the 10th Battalion Volunteer Rifles of Canada (later known as the Royal Regiment of Canada) and was appointed to the rank of Captain on 1 January 1862.
He retired from the militia in 1865.
When Fleming would not accept the tenders from contractors that he considered too high, he was asked to bid for the work himself and completed the line by 1867 with both savings for the government and profit for himself.
In 1862 he placed before the government a plan for a transcontinental railway connecting the Atlantic and Pacific oceans.
The first part, between Halifax and Québec became an important part of the preconditions for New Brunswick and Nova Scotia to join the Canadian Federation, because of the uncertainties of travel through Maine because of the American Civil War.
Above: Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada
Above: Flag of the Canadian province of New Brunswick
Above: Flag of the Canadian province of Nova Scotia
Above: The Fathers of Confederation, Québec Conference, 1864
Above: Flag of the US state of Maine
In 1867, Fleming was appointed engineer-in-chief of the Intercolonial Railway (1872 – 1918), which became a federal project.
Fleming continued in this post until 1876.
His insistence on building the bridges of iron and stone instead of wood was controversial at the time, but was soon vindicated by their resistance to fire.
Between 1870 and 1875 Fleming supervised the building of several parts of the Intercolonial Railway being built by Brown, Brooks & Ryan, a Toronto firm established by railway magnate Hugh Ryan.
These sections were particularly costly due to the difficult terrain and included two bridges over the Miramichi River and six miles of approaches.
Above: Miramichi River, New Brunswick, Canada
By 1871, the strategy of a railway connection was being used to bring British Columbia into Confederation.
Above: Flag of the Canadian province of British Columbia
Fleming was offered the chief engineer post on the Canadian Pacific Survey.
Above: Unidentified engineers of the Canadian Pacific Railway Survey, 1872
Although Fleming hesitated because of the amount of work he had, in 1872 he set off with a small party to survey the route, particularly through the Rocky Mountains, finding a practicable route through the Yellowhead Pass.
Above: Yellowhead Pass, British Columbia, Canada
One of his companions, George Monro Grant wrote an account of the trip, which became a best-seller.
Above: George Munro Grant (1835 – 1902)
In June 1880, Fleming was dismissed by Sir Charles Tupper, with a $30,000 payoff.
It was the hardest blow of Fleming’s life, though he obtained a promise of monopoly, later revoked, on his next project, a trans-pacific telegraph cable.
Above: Canadian Prime Minister Charles Tupper (1821 – 1915)
Nevertheless, in 1884 Fleming became a director of the Canadian Pacific Railway (CP).
He was present as the last spike was driven.
Above: Sandford Fleming (in tallest hat) at the ceremony of the “last spike” being driven on the Canadian Pacific Railway, Craigellachie, British Columbia, Canada – 7 November 1885
Fleming is credited with “the initial effort that led to the adoption of the present time meridians“.
Above: The Toronto site where Fleming first proposed standard time is marked by a provincial plaque.
After missing a train while travelling in Ireland because a printed schedule listed p.m. instead of a.m., in 1876 he wrote a memoir “Terrestrial Time” where he proposed a single 24-hour clock for the entire world, conceptually located at the centre of the Earth and not linked to any surface meridian.
Above: Coat of arms of Ireland
He later called this time “Cosmopolitan time” and later still “Cosmic Time“.
He proposed 24 time zones, each an hour wide or 15 degrees of longitude.
The zones were labelled A-Y, excluding J, and arbitrarily linked to the Greenwich Meridian, which was designated G.
All clocks within each zone would be set to the same time as the others, and between zones the alphabetic labels could be used as common notation.
So, for example, cosmopolitan time G:45 would map to local time 14:45 in one zone and 15:45 in the next.
In two papers “Time reckoning” and “Longitude and Time Reckoning” presented at a meeting of the Canadian Institute in Toronto on 8 February 1879, Fleming revised his system to link with the anti-meridian of Greenwich (the 180th meridian).
Above: Toronto, Ontario, Canada
Fleming suggested that a prime meridian be chosen and analyzed shipping numbers to suggest Greenwich as the meridian.
Above: Royal Observatory, Greenwich, London, England
Fleming’s two papers were considered so important that in June 1879 the British government forwarded copies to eighteen foreign countries and to various scientific bodies in England.
Above: Flag of the United Kingdoö
Fleming went on to advocate his system at several major international conferences including the Geographical Congress at Venice in 1881, a meeting of the Geodetic Association at Rome in 1883, and the International Meridian Conference of 1884.
Above: Grand Canal, Venezia (Venice), Italia (Italy)
Above: Roma (Rome), Italia (Italy)
The International Meridian Conference accepted the Greenwich Meridian and a universal day of 24 hours beginning at Greenwich midnight.
However, the Conference’s resolution specified that the universal day “shall not interfere with the use of local or standard time where desirable“.
The Conference also refused to accept his zones, stating that they were a local issue outside its purview.
Above: International Meridian Conference participants
Fleming authored the pamphlet “Time-Reckoning for the 20th Century“, published by the Smithsonian Institution in its annual report for 1886.
Above: The Smithsonian Institute, Washington DC, USA
By 1929, all major countries in the world had accepted time zones.
In the present day, UTC offsets divide the world into zones, and military time zones assign letters to the 24 hourly zones, similarly to Fleming’s system.
Fleming was also interested in global calendar reform.
Fleming met Moses B. Cotsworth in 1908 when Cotsworth visited Ottawa.
They discussed the International Fixed Calendar over lunch and Fleming agreed to present Cotsworth’s paper on his 13-month calendar to the Royal Society of Canada.
Fleming maintained a close friendship with Cotsworth and they often corresponded by letter.
Above: Moses B. Cotsworth (1859 – 1943)
Fleming became the president of the International Fixed Almanak Reform League which, in 1922, became the International Fixed Calendar League.
He supported the campaign until his death.
Cotsworth later wrote The Greatest Canadian as a tribute to Fleming.
Above: Federal plaque at Ottawa’s Dominion Observatory reflects Fleming’s designation as a National Historic Person
When the railway privatization instituted by Tupper in 1880 forced him out of a job with government, he retired from the world of surveying, and took the position of Chancellor of Queen’s University in Kingston, Ontario.
He held this position for his last 35 years, where his former Minister George Monro Grant was principal from 1877 until Grant’s death in 1902.
Above: Crest of Queen’s University, Kingston, Ontario, Canada
Not content to leave well enough alone, Fleming tirelessly advocated the construction of a submarine telegraph cable connecting all of the British Empire, the All Red Line, which was completed in 1902.
Being a man of ideas, in 1882, Fleming authored a book on the land policy of the Hudson’s Bay Company (HBC).
Fleming also kept up with business ventures, becoming in 1882 one of the founding owners of the Nova Scotia Cotton Manufacturing Company (1882 – 1917) in Halifax.
(The Nova Scotia Cotton Manufacturing Company was a cotton mill located in Halifax, Nova Scotia which was founded in 1882 and destroyed with great loss of life by the Halifax Explosion in 1917.
(On the morning of 6 December 1917, the French cargo ship SS Mont-Blanc collided with the Norwegian vessel SS Imo in Halifax harbour.
Mont-Blanc, laden with high explosives, caught fire and exploded, devastating the Richmond district of Halifax.
At least 1,782 people were killed, largely in Halifax and Dartmouth, by the blast, debris, fires, or collapsed buildings, and an estimated 9,000 others were injured.
The blast was the largest human-made explosion at the time.
It released the equivalent energy of roughly 2.9 kilotons of TNT (12 TJ).)
Fleming was a member of the North British Society.
The North British Society (also known as “The Scots” and “Scots Club“) was founded in Halifax, Nova Scotia in 1768, the oldest Scottish heritage society outside Great Britain.
North British is an adjective used as an alternative to “Scottish“.
Above: Flag of Scotland
Fleming also helped found the Western Canada Cement and Coal Company, which spawned the company town of Exshaw, Alberta.
In 1910, this business was captured in a hostile take-over by stock manipulators acting under the name Canada Cement Company, an action which Fleming took as a personal blow.
Above: Heart Mountain and the Cement Plant at Exshaw, Alberta
In 1880, Fleming served as the vice president of the Ottawa Horticultural Society (OHS).
In 1888, Fleming became the first president of the Rideau Curling Club, after leaving the Ottawa Curling Club in protest of its temperance policy.
In the early 1890s, Fleming turned his attention to electoral reform and the need for proportional representation.
He authored two books on the subject “An Appeal to the Canadian Institute on the Rectification of Parliament” (1892) and “Essays on the Rectification of Parliament” (1893).
Above: Parliament Hill, Ottawa, Ontario, Canada
Fleming became a strong advocate of a telecommunications cable from Canada to Australia, which he believed would become a vital communications link of the British Empire.
The Pacific Cable was successfully laid in 1902.
He authored the book “Canada and British Imperial Cables” in 1900.
Above: Flag of Australia
Fleming’s accomplishments were well known worldwide.
In 1897, he was knighted by Queen Victoria.
Above: British Queen Victoria (1819 – 1901)
Fleming was a freemason, having joined St Andrew’s Lodge # 1 [now # 16] in Toronto.
Above: Emblem of the Freemasons
In 1883, while surveying the route of the Canadian Pacific Railway with George Monro Grant, he met Major A. B. Rogers near the summit of Rogers Pass (British Columbia) and co-founded the first “Alpine Club of Canada“.
Above: Major Albert Bowman Rogers (1829 – 1889)
Above: Rogers Pass, British Columbia, Canada
That early alpine club was short-lived, but in 1906 the modern Alpine Club of Canada was founded in Winnipeg, and Sir Sandford Fleming became the club’s first Patron and Honorary President.
In his later years Fleming split his time between Ottawa at his house named “Winterholme” and Halifax where he owned a mansion known as “Blenheim Cottage“, but often called “The Lodge” at the corner of Oxford Street and South Street overlooking the Northwest Arm as well as a summer estate across the Arm called “The Dingle” which included the Sandford Fleming Cottage, a small rustic residence he built in 1886.
He later deeded the 95 acres (38 hectares) of “The Dingle” to the city, now known as Sir Sandford Fleming Park (Dingle Park).
Fleming died at his Dingle summer cottage while being cared for by his daughter on 22 July 1915.
Above: Fleming Cottage, The Dingle, Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada
Fleming was buried in Ottawa’s Beechwood Cemetery.
Above: The Cross of Sacrifice, Beechwood Cemetery War Memorial, Ottawa, Ontario, Canada
(Beechwood Cemetery is the national cemetery of Canada, located in Vanier, Ottawa, Ontario.
Over 82,000 people are buried in the cemetery, including Governor General Ramon Hnatyshyn (1934 – 2002), Prime Minister Robert Borden (1854 – 1937), and several Members of Parliament (MPs), Premiers, Canadian Armed Forces (CAF) personnel and veterans, Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) personnel, Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS) intelligence officers, and Hockey Hall of Famers, alongside other notable Canadians.
In addition to being Canada’s national cemetery, it contains the National Military Cemetery of the Canadian Armed Forces and the National Memorial Cemetery of the RCMP.)
What is time but an illusion in the pursuit of Nirvana?
In creating a system to measure time universally, Fleming paradoxically sought order in what Buddhism suggests is a fleeting, impermanent construct.
The rigidity of time stands in contrast to the timeless state of Nirvana.
His vision of 24 time zones was not merely a convenience, it was an attempt to impose order on the chaotic sprawl of human existence.
Time is a force no man can escape, but Fleming gave it boundaries, as though mapping the road to enlightenment itself.
Time is relentless, but gratitude allows us to embrace its passage rather than fear it.
Every moment is a gift, not a loss.
In a way, Fleming grappled with the question of “When is now?“.
The Earth spins around the Sun.
Daylight on one side of the world, darkness on the other.
Did Fleming’s ordered world account for moments like these?
Can time, even when mapped and measured, bring peace to those who never lived to see justice?
Fleming’s struggle with “When is now?” is profound.
Time, after all, is both absolute and relative, just as suffering is both personal and universal.
Time, however measured, is indifferent to suffering.
In 1968, on a college campus in South Carolina, time froze.
Above: Flag of American state of South Carolina
Orangeburg had a long history of student civil rights activism leading up to the events of 1968.
Above: Russell Street, Orangeburg, South Carolina, USA
In March 1960, students at South Carolina State College and Claflin College marched through downtown to protest segregation.
Led by Charles McDew and Thomas Gaither (later known as a member of the Friendship Nine), the approximately 1,000 marchers were assaulted by firemen and police officers with fire hoses and tear gas.
Above: American activist Charles McDew (1938 – 2018)
(The Friendship Nine, or Rock Hill Nine, was a group of African-American men who went to jail after staging a sit-in at a segregated McCrory’s lunch counter in Rock Hill, South Carolina in 1961.
The group gained nationwide attention because they followed the 1960 Nashville sit-ins strategy of “Jail, No Bail“, which lessened the huge financial burden civil rights groups were facing as the sit-in movement spread across the South.
They became known as the Friendship Nine because eight of the nine men were students at Rock Hill’s Friendship Junior College (1891 – 1981).)
Above: Friendship College, Rock Hill, South Carolina, USA
Police arrested close to 400 students and confined many of them outdoors in a cattle stockade.
The events prompted administrators at South Carolina State College to promise that students involved in any future demonstrations would be expelled.
The South Carolina State College (State College) underwent a major change in administration just before the 1967 – 1968 school year.
The college had been led for the preceding decade by President Brenner Turner, a conservative on civil rights who strove to maintain good relations with the white state government.
Students were bound by a strict code of conduct and forbidden to form political organizations or take part in civil rights protests.
These policies provoked sporadic student protests that the Turner administration firmly shut down.
However, in the spring of 1967, student frustration exploded in a prolonged walkout that paralyzed the school.
Students convinced Governor McNair to mediate, leading to Turner’s resignation.
The new interim president lifted many of the restrictions on students, including allowing political clubs to be established on campus.
The two most important of these were the Black Awareness Coordinating Committee (BACC) and a chapter of the NAACP.
The NAACP chapter took a moderate stance on civil rights and had over 300 members.
The BACC was much smaller — its membership hovered around twenty students — and represented students who embraced black pride and were interested in black power.
To the white community and the black middle class, the creation of the BACC was ominous.
They associated black power with the radical rhetoric of the new Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) leaders such as Stokely Carmichael and H. Rap Brown.
Above: US activist Kwame Ture (né Stokely Carmichael)(1941 – 1998)
Above: Jamil Abdullah al-Amin (né Hubert Brown)(aka H. Rap Brown)
This view was reinforced when a SNCC organizer, Cleveland Sellers, arrived in Orangeburg in October.
In his autobiography, Sellers wrote that he had returned to his home state because:
“I believed I could develop a movement by focusing attention on the problems of the poor blacks in South Carolina.“
The Orangeburg elites viewed Sellers as an outside agitator who was there to stir up trouble.
Above: American activist Cleveland Sellers
There were several ongoing sources of racial tension at State College and in the surrounding city.
An independent committee had been set up after Turner’s resignation to investigate how conditions at the college could be improved, and the issued a list of recommendations.
However, by the start of 1968 the Board of Trustees had still not formally accepted their findings.
Despite a wide disparity in funding between State College and white colleges in South Carolina, in January, Governor McNair announced that he was rejecting State College’s request for a budget increase.
Above: South Carolina Governor Robert McNair (1923 – 2007)
Orangeburg had not yet seen the same civil rights reforms as most areas in the south.
Many institutions remained segregated, including doctors’ offices, entertainment venues, and the Orangeburg Regional Hospital.
Above: Orangeburg Regional Hospital
Political offices remained beyond the reach of black citizens, in part because the city boundaries were gerrymandered to exclude blacks.
(Gerrymandering is the practice of setting boundaries of electoral districts to favor specific political interests within legislative bodies, often resulting in districts with convoluted, winding boundaries rather than compact areas.
The term “gerrymandering” was coined after a review of Massachusetts’s redistricting maps of 1812 set by Governor Elbridge Gerry noted that one of the districts looked like a mythical salamander.)
Above: A salamander unharmed in the fire
In the summer and fall of 1967, a whites-only bowling alley near campus, All-Star Bowling Lane, became a focus of student protests.
Owner Harry K. Floyd repeatedly refused students’ requests to desegregate.
Instead, he followed the trend of replacing his “Whites Only” sign with one saying “Privately Owned” (and saying that only “club members” would be allowed in).
In October, the college’s NAACP chapter invited a lawyer to discuss how they could mount a legal challenge.
The lawyer explained that while the legal status of segregated bowling alleys was unclear, the fact that All-Star had a lunch counter meant that it was required to desegregate under the Civil Rights Act of 1964.
Student activist John Stroman devised a plan to prove that Floyd’s club-members-only strategy was a cover for refusing black patrons:
He would ask a white student without a club membership to try bowling at the alley.
On Monday, 5 February 1968, the white student arrived and was able to start bowling without being asked to prove his club membership.
A little while later, Stroman and a group of black students arrived and asked to bowl.
When the staff refused to let them, the students tried sitting at the lunch counter and were refused service there as well.
The staff threw away anything they touched.
Stroman pointed out to Floyd that the white student had been allowed to bowl without ever showing that he was a member, but Floyd just called the police.
City Police Chief Roger Poston arrived and ordered the alley closed for the night.
Chief Poston then met with Stroman and told him that he would have to arrest him for trespassing if he returned to the bowling alley.
Stroman responded that getting arrested was his plan so that he could challenge the policy in court.
Stroman and a group of about 40 students returned to the bowling alley on Tuesday evening.
They were met by 20 officers led by Chief Poston and South Carolina Law Enforcement Division (SLED) Chief J. P. Strom.
Chief Poston told Stroman that 40 was probably more than needed to start the court case, so Stroman asked the women and any men who did not want to be arrested to leave.
The 15 remaining staged a brief sit-in and were arrested for trespassing.
To this point, everything had proceeded as planned.
But as the police were leading the arrestees outside, another student was arrested for cursing at an officer.
One student later recalled that this was a turning point, saying:
“Everything was cool until the cops rushed into the crowd of students outside in the parking lot and arrested some cat.”
Above: Parking lot of the bowling alley, Orangeburg, South Carolina, USA
As the arrestees were driven downtown, one student returned to campus and shared news of the arrests with a crowd leaving a movie theater.
The crowd, without knowing the arrests were planned, arrived at the bowling alley to make sure the arrestees were not being mistreated.
When the police saw the new crowd gathering, they offered to release Stroman and his classmates on the condition that they help defuse the situation at the bowling alley.
This worked at first.
Stroman and the others returned and were able to explain that the arrests were planned.
Students began to return to campus.
The mood of the crowd changed when a fire truck arrived.
Fire hoses had been used in Orangeburg as a form of crowd control and had a reputation for brutality.
Chief Poston was unaware of this and had called the truck as backup.
The students interpreted the move as an act of aggression.
They began to shout insults at the firefighters.
The police moved away from the alley to protect the fire truck from the students.
A student then broke one of the alley’s windows.
The police arrested the suspect, but the crowd blocked them from leaving.
Police and students began yelling abuse at each other.
Although it is not clear which happened first, police began beating students with billy clubs and one student sprayed something in an officer’s eyes.
The beatings continued for several minutes.
Witnesses described seeing an officer grab and restrain a female student while another beat her with his club.
Others reported seeing “a young woman begging not to be hit again, even as a policeman swung his club“.
Cecil Williams recalled seeing two officers beating a female student who fell while fleeing.
Eight students and one officer were sent to the hospital.
The rest of the students fled back to campus, some smashing the windows of cars and businesses on their way.
Although the Associated Press (AP) ran a story the following day claiming that cars had been overturned.
In fact, the students had not overturned any cars and had caused less than $5,000 in damages.
As soon as students arrived back on campus, they held an impromptu mass meeting.
Sellers was present at the meeting, and, when asked for his advice, suggested that the students immediately occupy the intersections in front of campus and demand to speak to the Chamber of Commerce about the bowling alley issue.
This proposal was rejected.
Eventually, the students agreed to ask permission to hold a protest march the following day and drew up a list of ten demands.
The demands included desegregating the bowling alley, the hospital, and doctors’ offices as well as an end to police brutality.
Tensions escalated rapidly over the next few days.
On Wednesday morning, the student leaders submitted their request to hold a march, but were rebuffed.
Instead, Mayor E. O. Pandarvis, City Manager Bob Stevenson, and several Orangeburg business leaders came to the State College campus in an attempt to placate the students.
City leaders were unprepared for the students’ questions and had no response to the demands read off by the students.
The head of the Chamber of Commerce was slightly more conciliatory and offered to read the demands at the Chamber’s next meeting.
Above: City Hall, Orangeburg, South Carolina
There was no local media coverage of the students’ grievances:
The Times and Democrat (Orangeburg’s local newspaper) did not publish the students’ list of demands until several days later (when they reported that the city council had rejected them).
In a journal article published a few months after the shooting, Washington Post reporter Jim Hoagland argued that this media silence may have contributed to the students’ frustration and anger.
There were several outbreaks of violence on Wednesday.
With no protest planned, frustrated students gathered in informal groups to discuss the police “whipping our girls“.
Several crowds of angry students threw rocks and bricks at cars driving on US Route 601 that contained white passengers.
Police responded by setting up roadblocks to block traffic.
Two blocks from campus, a homeowner shot and injured three Claflin College students who he said had been trespassing.
Late that night, two white men drove a car onto campus and shot at students before being chased off with rocks and bottles.
On Wednesday evening Governor McNair decided to activate the National Guard.
His main concern, shared by the police chiefs, was based on the unfounded rumor that the “plan of the black power people” was to attack utilities and burn down the city.
Therefore, 250 Orangeburg-area National Guards took up positions protecting utilities across the city, joined by hundreds of highway patrol officers.
On Thursday, McNair ordered an additional 110 National Guardsmen to Orangeburg.
They were joined by FBI agents, officers from SLED, and Governor McNair’s representatives.
Journalist Jack Shuler argued that the arrival of these outside officials “disrupted any kind of communication among white leaders, the college campuses and the African American community“.
Shuler cites Sellers as saying that while negotiations had been slow before the arrival of state officials, afterwards they broke down.
By the evening of Thursday 8 February, tensions were high and the police had set up a command post (nicknamed “Checkpoint Charlie“) at the intersection of Russell Street and US Highway 601 to monitor the State College campus.
Above: Highway Patrolmen advance take positions on an embankment, shortly before opening fire on student protestors.
Around 7:00 p.m., about 50 State College students gathered at the front of campus to start a bonfire.
Police intervened to stop them and called up additional Highway Patrolmen to Checkpoint Charlie and to a warehouse and freight depot across from Claflin College.
Students began to shout insults at the police.
A .22 caliber pistol was fired from a dormitory over their heads of the police stationed near the warehouse and freight depot.
About 9:30 p.m., a larger group of students led by State College student Henry Smith made a second attempt at building a bonfire.
This time they were successful, using wood from a nearby abandoned house.
About 200 students from State College, Claflin, and Wilkinson High School spent the next hour gathered around the bonfire in good spirits.
They told reporters that they would stay as long as the police did.
More than 130 police from at least five agencies were positioned near the front of State College’s campus.
They were under the overall command of SLED Chief Strom, and under orders from Governor McNair not to let the students leave campus.
Through journalist intermediaries, Strom attempted to get the students to move away from the front of campus, a request that they refused unless the police would leave first.
At about 10:30 p.m., Strom and the other leading officers decided to call a firetruck to put out the bonfire.
When the truck arrived, it advanced slowly up US 601 with a police escort.
On the truck’s left, between the highway and railroad tracks were the National Guard.
On the truck’s right, a squad of highway patrol officers under Lieutenant Jesse Spell advanced up Watson Street.
The students retreated towards Lowman Hall, throwing rocks and bottles.
The fire was quickly extinguished but continued to smolder.
As Spell’s squad turned to scale the embankment at the end of Watson Street, someone threw two white banister posts at patrolmen Donald Crosby and David Shealy.
Crosby ducked, but Shealy was struck in the mouth and injured.
The other patrolmen thought that Shealy had been shot, and several rushed to his aid.
About five minutes later (around 10:38 p.m.), many of the students began to walk back towards the embankment, unaware that the patrolmen believed Shealy had been shot.
Most of the 66 patrolmen in front of them had taken up positions behind the embankment or in the surrounding vegetation and were invisible to the students.
When the first students reached about 100 feet from the officers, some witnesses recalled hearing a patrolman fire a shot into the air, possibly as a warning.
Other witnesses would later recall hearing a whistle, as if signaling to fire.
In either case, the noise caused the students to turn and run, some holding their hands in the air or dropping to the ground.
Lieutenant Spell then shouted “now“.
He and at least eight other patrolmen opened fire on the students.
City police officer John Cook joined in as well, and four additional patrolmen fired over the students’ heads.
The shooting lasted eight seconds.
Most patrolmen fired from Remington Model 870 shotguns, while a few used carbines and one fired a pistol.
After expending several rounds, Lieutenant Spell gave the order to cease fire.
Thirty-one victims are known to have been hit by police fire.
The victims’ ages ranged between 15 and 23.
They included seven students from Claflin, nineteen from State College, and three from Wilkinson High School.
Two others were not students:
- Joseph Hampton, a recent State College graduate
- Cleveland Sellers, a SNCC community organizer
Most victims sustained injuries from behind while fleeing or on the soles of the feet while lying on the ground.
The most serious non-fatal wounds included those to Bobby Burton, whose left arm was paralyzed, and to Ernest Raymond Carson, who was hit by eight buckshot slugs.
Three of those injured would later die of their wounds at the Orangeburg Regional Hospital:
- Samuel Ephesians Hammond
- Delano Herman Middleton
- Henry Ezekial Smith
Smith and Hammond were both State College students, while Middleton was a senior at Wilkinson High School.
Hammond was killed by a shot to his back.
Middleton received seven bullet wounds:
Three to his arm and one each to his hip, thigh, and heart.
Smith was killed by shots from both sides, leaving five bullet wounds.
Many of the student witnesses believed that the patrolmen had mistaken Smith for Sellers and had aimed their fire at him.
The patrolmen testified that they had not aimed at any specific target.
The injured students were taken to the segregated waiting room at Orangeburg Regional Hospital.
Reporters overheard one of the patrolmen gloating over police radio, saying:
“You should have been here, ol’ buddy; got a couple of ’em tonight.“
Over the next few hours the police arrested and heavily beat several more people.
Louise Kelly Crawley would suffer a miscarriage after she was arrested and beaten while taking injured students to the hospital.
John Carson approached several officers in the waiting room and demanded to know why they had shot his younger brother, Ernest Raymond, eight times.
The patrolmen refused to answer, and when Caron continued to repeat his question, they placed him under arrest and beat him in the head with their rifle butts.
Cleveland Sellers was arrested while awaiting hospital treatment.
He would later be charged with inciting a riot, arson, assault and battery with intent to kill, property damage, housebreaking, and grand larceny.
Some of the hospital staff insulted and demeaned the students.
Oscar Butler recalled overhearing a staff member say:
“They asked for it.”
Half an hour after the shooting, a group of students broke into the ROTC building and stole a handful of training rifles.
The rifles lacked firing pins and, after other students spoke to the group that had stolen the rifles, they were returned within about twenty minutes.
The reaction of the mainstream media was mainly indifference or support for the actions of the police.
Civil rights demonstrations had come to be seen as violent after major riots in Detroit and Newark the previous summer.
According to journalist and later historian Dave Nolan:
“Most whites seemed to feel that it was justified to put them down as brutally as possible.”
This predisposition was reinforced by inaccurate reporting on the ground.
The Associated Press reported that there had been a “heavy exchange of gunfire” and never issued a correction.
Newspapers across the country ran the AP story with headlines such as “Three Die in Riot“, “Trio Slain after Opening Fire on Police“, or “Three Killed as Negroes, Police Exchange Shots“.
Governor McNair gave a speech about the massacre the following day.
He called it “one of the saddest days in the history of South Carolina”, but said that the shootings had taken place off campus, that the officers were reacting to being fired upon, and that the shootings had been necessary “to protect life and property.”
He accused “black power advocates” of having “sparked” the incident, and mentioned the theft of ROTC rifles as having helped escalate the situation.
The Governor’s office blamed Cleveland Sellers in particular.
McNair’s spokesman told reporters that Sellers was “the main man. He’s the biggest n….. in the crowd” and said that he was the one who had thrown the banister at Officer Shealy.
The Governor’s account of events was widely accepted by the mainstream media in the weeks following the event.
Most of the white reporters in Orangeburg failed to investigate official claims, interview key witnesses, or ask the police probing questions.
According to Washington Post reporter Jim Hoagland, they “covered the story largely from the Holiday Inn“.
Above: Orangeburg Holiday Inn
Martin Luther King Jr. blamed the massacre on SLED Chief J. P. Strom, and called for an investigation by the US Attorney General.
Above: American activist Martin Luther King, Jr. (1929 – 1968)
The NAACP’s executive director Roy Wilkins echoed King’s call for an investigation.
John Lewis accused the white press of conspiring to obscure the true nature of events.
SNCC chairman Rap Brown issued the most radical statement, calling for black people to take up arms in self-defense and to “die like men“.
In the State College newspaper The Collegian, students decried the inaccurate reporting in the mainstream press and argued for why the anti-segregation protests were justified.
Black students staged demonstrations across the country.
In Greenville, South Carolina, black and white students protested together against the killings.
Above: Greenville, South Carolina, USA
Despite the fact that the Orangeburg Massacre was the first time police shot and killed students on a United States university campus, they received much less media coverage than the later police shootings at Kent State and Jackson State.
Above: Mary Ann Vecchio gestures and screams as she kneels by the body of a student, Jeffrey Miller, lying face down on the campus of Kent State University, in Kent, Ohio, USA – 4 May 1970
(The Kent State shootings (also known as the Kent State massacre or May 4 massacre) were the killing of four and wounding of nine unarmed college students by the Ohio National Guard on the Kent State University campus.
The shootings took place on 4 May 1970, during a rally opposing the expanding involvement of the Vietnam War into Cambodia by United States military forces as well as protesting the National Guard presence on campus and the draft.
Twenty-eight National Guard soldiers fired about 67 rounds over 13 seconds, killing four students and wounding nine others, one of whom suffered permanent paralysis.
Students Allison Krause, 19, Jeffrey Miller, 20, and Sandra Scheuer, 20, died on the scene, while William Schroeder, 19, was pronounced dead at Robinson Memorial Hospital in nearby Ravenna shortly afterward.
Krause and Miller were among the more than 300 students who gathered to protest the expansion of the Cambodian campaign, which President Richard Nixon had announced in an 30 April television address.
Scheuer and Schroeder were in the crowd of several hundred others who had been observing the proceedings more than 300 feet (91 m) from the firing line; like most observers, they watched the protest during a break between their classes.
The shootings triggered immediate and massive outrage on campuses around the country.
It increased participation in the student strike that began on 1 May.
Ultimately, more than 4 million students participated in organized walk-outs at hundreds of universities, colleges, and high schools.
The shootings and the strike affected public opinion at an already socially contentious time over the role of the United States in the Vietnam War.
Eight of the shooters were charged with depriving the students of their civil rights, but were acquitted in a bench trial.
The trial judge stated:
“It is vital that state and National Guard officials not regard this decision as authorizing or approving the use of force against demonstrators, whatever the occasion of the issue involved.
Such use of force is, and was, deplorable.“
The Jackson State killings occurred on 15 May 1970, at Jackson State College (now Jackson State University) in Jackson, Mississippi.
On 14 May 1970, city and state police confronted a group of students outside a campus dormitory.
Shortly after midnight, the police opened fire, killing two students and injuring twelve.
The event happened 11 days after the Kent State shootings, in which National Guardsmen killed four students at Kent State University in Ohio during a protest against the Vietnam War.
The Kent State event had first captured national attention.)
For example, the week’s issue of Time did not mention the event.
Dave Nolan argues that the subject of the protests may have played a role:
By 1968, the white public was no longer supportive of demonstrations against segregation, whereas at the time the Kent and Jackson State students were killed, the Vietnam War was a highly charged national issue.
Jack Bass and civil rights lawyer Eva Paterson argue that race was a key factor.
The most famous of the three incidents (Kent State) was the one where the victims were white.
Bass also suggests that the fact that Orangeburg happened at night, meaning there were fewer videos or photographs, had an impact on public reactions.
Survivor Thomas Kennerly blamed the lack of attention on the reactions of state officials.
He also recalled that the Orangeburg Massacre was followed by the assassinations of Martin Luther King Jr. and Robert F. Kennedy, which quickly took over the news cycle.
Above: US Senator Robert F. Kennedy (1925 – 1968)
In contrast, Kent State and Jackson State happened in close succession, keeping the issue of how campus unrest was handled by law enforcement and university administrations in the public eye.
The Orangeburg Massacre was a rupture in history — a moment when a nation failed to learn, failed to atone.
The Orangeburg Massacre, too, was a struggle for justice, yet justice was denied.
The victims were unarmed.
They were young.
They were Black in a world that saw them as less than human.
Did they find salvation when the bullets struck?
Did they achieve Nirvana?
The dead of Orangeburg saw a end to their suffering, but for those who loved them, those who believed in the dignity of all people regardless of who they are, for them there was no peace of mind.
Tragedies, such as Orangeburg, born from human error, systemic flaws and racial injustice speak of suffering, attachment to ideology, and the consequences of disharmony, through the lens of Nirvana, can be seen as moments that remind us of the suffering that binds human existence, suffering that can only be overcome through wisdom and compassion.
Tragedy devastates, but it means recognizing the lessons it leaves behind, the lives it touches, the awareness it awakens.
Nirvana does not mean to be free of suffering, to be free of life’s challenges, but to meet them with an open heart, with neither clinging nor resistance.
Survival is an all-consuming present.
The deeper question might be:
Can these moments of horror also create moments of awakening?
Do they force society to face something it otherwise ignores?
If so, even suffering becomes a kind of forced enlightenment.
Here is the paradox of human existence — the tension between what is and what could be.
Man is a restless creature, forever seeking, forever longing.
Even in moments of profound peace, a whisper of desire stirs within him.
Perhaps it is this very longing that keeps Nirvana just beyond reach.
If Nirvana is the extinguishing of desire, then how can a being whose essence is defined by wanting — by reaching, by striving — ever truly attain it?
Is the human condition itself an insurmountable obstacle to enlightenment?
Yet, consider this:
Perhaps Nirvana is not a destination but a state that flickers into being in brief, luminous moments.
A musician lost in the act of playing, unaware of self.
A wanderer pausing at the edge of a vast landscape, surrendering thought to awe.
A man buying breakfast for a friend, with no expectation of return.
Are these not glimpses of Nirvana?
Man may never stay in Nirvana, but he may touch it.
And perhaps that is enough.
The very fact that we recognize our own restlessness, our own inability to let go — doesn’t that carry the seed of enlightenment?
So maybe the question is not whether man can reach Nirvana, but whether he can learn to recognize its fleeting presence in the spaces between desire and sorrow, between ambition and regret.
If Nirvana is not a place to be reached but a way of moving through the world, then it ceases to be an impossible ideal and instead becomes a quiet, constant presence, something glimpsed in the spaces between our strivings.
Perhaps the journey is Nirvana when we walk it with awareness, when we learn to release our grip on what we cannot hold and embrace the moment as it unfolds.
The struggle, the longing, the reaching are not obstacles to enlightenment but part of the path itself.
It is the act of walking — not the arrival — that shapes us.
And maybe the closest we come to Nirvana is when we accept the journey for what it is, without clinging to an imagined destination where all will finally be resolved.
On the morning of 8 February 1986, Via Rail Canada train No. 4 was traveling eastbound from Jasper to Edmonton on its transcontinental journey.
The train, which combined Super Continental and Skeena, consisted of 14 units in the following order:
- FP7 Diesel locomotive number 6566
- F9B Diesel locomotive number 6633
- Baggage – Dormitory 617
- Coach – Snack Bar 3229
- Skyline Dome car number 513
- 4-8-4 Sleeping car 1139 Ennishore
- 4-8-4 Sleeping car 1120 Elcott
- FP9ARM Diesel locomotive number 6300 (inoperative)
- Steam generator car 15445
- Baggage car 9653
- Daynighter Coach 5703
- Cafe – Lounge 757
- 4-8-4 Sleeping car 1150 Estcourt
- Steam generator car 15404
The train’s unusual composition was the result of two separate scheduled services from British Columbia being coupled together at Jasper.
The front section, which had originated in Vancouver, consisted of two locomotives and five cars while the second (rear) section from Prince Rupert was led by one locomotive and five cars.
A steam generator was coupled to the end of the train at Jasper for transfer to Edmonton depot for maintenance.
Engineers Mike Peleshaty, 57, and Emil Miller, 53, were in the lead locomotive.
On board the train were 94 passengers, 14 stewards and seven crew (115 total).
Canadian National Railway’s westbound train No. 413 consisted of three locomotives, EMD GP38-2W number 5586, and 2 EMD SD40 numbers 5104 and 5062, followed by a high-speed spreader, 35 cylindrical hoppers loaded with grain, seven bulkhead flat cars loaded with large pipes, 45 hoppers loaded with sulphur, 20 loaded tank cars, six more grain cars, and a caboose:
A total consist of three locomotives and 115 cars.
It was 6,124 feet (1,867 m) long and weighed 12,804 short tons (11,432 long tons; 11,616 t).
On the lead locomotive were engineer John Edward “Jack” Hudson, aged 48, and brakeman Mark Edwards, aged 25.
On the caboose, conductor Wayne “Smitty” Smith, aged 33.
In 1986, a railway line outside Hinton, Alberta, became a graveyard when a freight train collided with a passenger train, killing 23.
In that frozen instant, time meant nothing to those lost.
The freight train left Edson at 06:40.
About 38 km (24 mi) from Edson, it was halted at sidings outside Medicine Lodge to allow two eastbound trains to pass.
It departed Medicine Lodge at 08:02 and traveled 5 km (3.1 mi), reaching Hargwen at 08:20 where a section of double track started.
The train dispatcher at Edmonton set the dual-control switch (DCS) so that the freight train took the north track.
At about the same time, the Super Continental was stopped at Hinton.
It departed five minutes late on the single track.
Above: Hinton Station
At 08:29, as the Super Continental approached the start of the double track section, the dispatcher from the Centralized Traffic Control (CTC) lined the dual-control switch at Dalehurst to the south track.
This set the absolute three-aspect signal at the Dalehurst control point on the north line (about 490 ft (150 m) before the end of double-track) to an absolute stop indication of three steady red lights, telling the freight train to not proceed any farther.
This also set the double-aspect approach signal located 13,600 feet (4.1 km) east of Dalehurst to yellow over red, telling the freight train to reduce its speed to 30 miles per hour (48 km/h) and to prepare to stop at Dalehurst.
The crash investigation found that the freight train was traveling at 59 mph (95 km/h) as it passed the approach signal — 9 mph (14 km/h) over the 50 mph (80 km/h) speed limit.
No attempt was made by the crew of the freight train to slow down before or after passing the approach signal.
The freight train proceeded past the Dalehurst control point, running through the switch and into the section of single track.
At 08:40, approximately 18 seconds after the lead locomotive of the freight train entered the single section, it collided head on with the oncoming Super Continental.
Both lead locomotives were destroyed, killing their crews.
The front cars and freight cars derailed.
Diesel fuel from the locomotives ignited, engulfing them, the baggage car, and the day coach in flames.
18 of the day coach’s 36 occupants died.
Due to momentum, the cars on the freight train piled up on each other resulting in a large pile of debris.
All three freight locomotives followed by 76 hoppers and tank cars were either destroyed or severely damaged.
On the passenger train, one coach was crushed by a freight car after it was thrown into the air by the force of the collision, killing one of its occupants.
In the dome car, others were able to escape either through a window in the dome that had been broken by passengers, or through the hole left by the freight car.
The two sleepers following the dome car jackknifed into each other and were thrown on their sides causing injuries but no deaths.
The mid train locomotive (6300) was severely damaged.
The last three passenger cars at the rear of the train did not derail, but there were many injuries.
After the rear of the freight train came to a halt, conductor Smith, still in the caboose, attempted to contact the front of the train before contacting emergency services after seeing the fire.
The Canadian government set up a Commission of Inquiry to investigate the crash.
The inquiry lasted 56 days of public hearings and received evidence from 150 parties.
The Foisy Commission published its full report on 22 January 1987.
The inquiry concluded that no one individual was to blame.
Instead it condemned what Foisy described as a “railroader culture” that prized loyalty and productivity at the expense of safety.
As an example of lax attitudes to safety, Foisy noted that engineering crews that took over trains at Edson did so “on the fly“.
While the locomotive was moving slowly through the yard, the new crew would jump on and the previous crew would jump off.
While this method saved time and fuel, it was a flagrant violation of safety regulations which required stationary brake tests after a crew change.
Management claimed to be unaware of this practice, even though it was quite common.
In regards to engineer John Hudson, the Foisy Commission concluded it was a possibility that the collision happened because he had either fallen asleep at the controls or had suffered a heart attack or stroke due to his extremely poor health.
The report highlighted that there was no evidence that either train made any attempt to brake prior to the collision.
Analysis of the line showed both trains would have been visible to each other for only the final 19 seconds before the collision.
No conclusive reason could be found for the failure of the passenger train crew to react, neither was there any evidence that the Super Continental crew had made any errors before the accident.
No evidence could be found to explain why the freight train failed to stop at the absolute signal at the Dalehurst control point.
After a wrong-side signal problem was eliminated, human error was considered the only possible cause.
Tests on the crews’ remains ruled out drugs or alcohol as a cause, though it was revealed that the engineer of the freight train, Jack Hudson, was an alcoholic and heavy smoker who suffered from pancreatitis and type 2 diabetes, thus placing him at risk for a heart attack or stroke.
The Commission further criticized CN’s ineffective monitoring of Hudson’s health condition:
The serious nature of Hudson’s medical condition raises a strong possibility that it was a factor contributing to the collision of February 8.
The Commission therefore concludes that engineer Hudson’s medical condition possibly contributed to his failure to control Train 413.
The Commission also concludes that there are serious deficiencies in the manner in which CN monitored and reacted to that condition.
The Commission finds that both the policies and procedures that permitted a man in Hudson’s medical state to be responsible for the operation of a freight train on the CN main line to be unacceptable.”
Another frequently ignored safety regulation mentioned in the report was the “deadman’s pedal“, which a locomotive engineer had to keep depressed for the train to remain underway.
Were he to fall asleep or pass out, his foot would slip from the pedal, triggering an alarm and engaging the train’s brakes automatically a few seconds later.
However, many engineers found this tiresome and bypassed the pedal by placing a heavy weight (often a worn out brake shoe) on it.
It was uncertain whether the pedal had been bypassed in this case because the lead locomotive of the train had been destroyed.
Above: Deadman’s pedal
A more advanced safety device was available, the reset safety control (RSC), which required crew members to take an action such as pushing a button at regular intervals, or else automatic braking would occur, but neither lead locomotive was equipped with this safety feature.
While the second locomotive in the freight train was equipped with RSC, it was not assigned as the lead locomotive because it lacked a “comfort cab“.
Management and union practice was to place more comfortable locomotives at the front of trains, even at the expense of safety.
The report also noted that although the front-end and rear-end crews should have been in regular communication, that did not appear to be the case in this accident.
As the freight train reached Hargwen, engineer Hudson radioed back to conductor Smith that the signals were green, a communication that was heard by a following freight.
As it ran towards Dalehurst there was no evidence of further communication.
The conductor is in charge of the train, so if Smith felt that the train was out of control or there were serious problems, he should have activated the emergency brake in the caboose to stop the train.
However, Smith, who appeared to be nervous while testifying, said that he did not feel that the freight was ever out of control, misjudging its speed.
He also testified that he attempted to radio Hudson on two radios and several channels, but neither seemed to be working, even though immediately after the crash Smith was able to contact the dispatcher by radio.
In any event, on the failure to receive communication from the head end, regulations required him to activate the emergency brake.
On 8 February 1986, 23 people were killed.
It was the deadliest rail disaster in Canada at that time.
What of Hinton, where passengers on a train had no idea that fate had placed them on a path to tragedy?
If salvation exists, does it reach the innocent?
The lost?
Those whose lives end before their journeys do?
Where is the sense in Orangeburg and Hinton?
There is none.
And yet, we search for meaning.
Not because there is meaning, but because we need it.
But does meaning change the reality of suffering?
Does understanding a tragedy make it hurt less?
Or does it simply give us the illusion of control over a world that is, by its nature, indifferent?
Can Nirvana ever heal the hurt of those who suffered loss?
Healing is not forgetting nor is it erasure.
But peace — if it ever comes — is not in denying pain but in moving beyond its grip.
Nirvana, if it has a role at all, is not in taking away the sorrow, but in transforming how one carries it.
I take comfort in the ideas that Fred Rogers expressed:
- “You know, I think everybody longs to be loved, and longs to know that he or she is lovable. And, consequently, the greatest thing that we can do is to help somebody know that they’re loved and capable of loving.”
- “When I say it’s you I like, I’m talking about that part of you that knows that life is far more than anything you can ever see or hear or touch. That deep part of you that allows you to stand for those things without which humankind cannot survive. Love that conquers hate, peace that rises triumphant over war, and justice that proves more powerful than greed.”
- “It’s our insides that make us who we are, that allow us to dream and wonder and feel for others. That’s what’s essential. That’s what will always make the biggest difference in our world.”
- “As human beings, our job in life is to help people realize how rare and valuable each one of us really is, that each of us has something that no one else has — or ever will have— something inside that is unique to all time. It’s our job to encourage each other to discover that uniqueness and to provide ways of developing its expression.“.
He also said that tragedy is not what we should focus on but rather on those who assist in that tragedy.
“When I was a boy and I would see scary things in the news, my mother would say to me:
“Look for the helpers. You will always find people who are helping.”
To this day, especially in times of “disaster”, I remember my mother’s words and I am always comforted by realizing that there are still so many helpers — so many caring people in this world.”
“Whenever a great tragedy strikes — war, famine, mass shootings, or even an outbreak of populist rage — millions of people turn to Fred’s messages about life.
Then the web is filled with his words and images.
With fascinating frequency, his written messages and video clips surge across the Internet, reaching hundreds of thousands of people who, confronted with a tough issue or ominous development, open themselves to Rogers’ messages of quiet contemplation, of simplicity, of active listening and the practice of human kindness.”
Rogers’s biographer Maxwell King
Fred Rogers had a way of distilling deep truths into the simplest, kindest expressions, and I think his wisdom aligns beautifully with what we are contemplating.
Above: US children’s TV host and author Fred Rogers (1928 – 2003)
Tragedy may be inevitable, but our response to it defines whether it leaves behind only devastation or also a legacy of compassion and growth.
What happened at Hinton and Orangeburg cannot be undone, but if their lessons shape how we move forward — if they make us kinder, more just, more awake — then they are not in vain.
It has been suggested that what we do in this life echoes in eternity, but I find myself struggling with the premise of religion that there will be rewards for the good that we do and punishment for the bad that we commit.
I do agree with the idea of human connection.
I do believe that we should “do unto others as you would have them do unto you“.
But not for a release from our suffering in this or in another existence, but rather that doing good deeds makes life for ourselves and others more bearable.
I am reminded of Gulliver’s Travels yet again and of how the Houyhnhnms (a race of intelligent horses) dealt with moody Yahoo (uncivilized man) by compelling the Yahoo to think not of themselves but in labor benefiting others.
This struggle is one that has echoed through the minds of philosophers, skeptics, and seekers for centuries.
The idea that morality must be incentivized — whether by divine reward or punishment — can feel transactional, almost diminishing the very essence of goodness itself.
Should kindness be given only with the expectation of a cosmic tally sheet?
Or should it arise naturally, as a reflection of our shared existence, our interconnectedness?
I see virtue not as a bargaining chip for an afterlife but as a means of making this life more bearable, more meaningful.
That, I think, is a profound and noble stance — one that aligns more with a deep, intrinsic humanity rather than with doctrine.
The Houyhnhnms, in their rational and communal way, understood that to be absorbed in oneself is to suffer, while to serve a greater whole is to find purpose.
Perhaps the true “reward” for goodness is not an external prize but the very transformation it brings within us.
When we give, when we act with compassion, we lighten our own burdens.
When we lift another, we ourselves are lifted.
And in that, there is a kind of Nirvana — not in some distant celestial realm, but here, in the quiet peace that comes with knowing we have done what we could to make the world, even in some small way, gentler.
So, do we seek Heaven?
Or do we build it — here, in this life, in this moment?
We have arrived at a truth both liberating and weighty — the Now is the only certainty, the only space where life truly is.
Heaven, then, is not a distant promise but a present act, a conscious creation in each fleeting moment.
Yet, suffering remains.
We see it, we feel it, and we know that our reach is limited.
The echoes of history’s tragedies — we cannot erase them, nor can we heal every wound.
But does that make our small acts meaningless?
If we cannot change everything, does it mean we should change nothing?
We touch upon an age-old dilemma:
The burden of awareness.
To see suffering is to bear the weight that ignorance would spare us.
But ignorance is not bliss — it is simply blindness.
And so, we act where we can.
We offer a meal, a kindness, a moment of recognition.
We let our ripples spread, knowing they may touch shores we will never see.
Perhaps the surest way to honor the Now is not to mourn what we cannot do, but to embrace what we can.
Is nirvana in the journey or in the arrival?
Perhaps that’s what makes the pursuit of Nirvana meaningful — the fact that we may never reach it, but we try anyway.
Today is not just a date.
It is a road, a river, a railway line stretching through history.
Some who walked this road found their peace, their salvation, their fulfillment.
Some never got the chance.
But time, as Fleming understood, is not chaos — it is a series of measured steps, a journey that carries on beyond us.
And perhaps, in that understanding, we find the closest thing to Nirvana we will ever know.
It is in the sacred moment, the Now, where nothing is promised, yet everything is possible.
