The North Bay Bay

From: Philip St. George, thenorthbaybay.ca staff

NORTH BAY — ‘Trash Mountain,’ the nearly 15 foot high pile of snow, dirt and garbage that accumulates outside North Bay’s Wal-Mart, has melted and left behind a mystery.

Discovered among the remaining shopping bags, cigarette butts, Tim Horton’s cups, plastic bottles, pop cans, dog poop, food wrappers and plastic utensils is a time capsule from 1998.

1998 was the year the superstore officially opened in North Bay, but current Wal-Mart Manager Carol Buckley is as surprised as anyone over the discovery.

“It must have been created and sealed by the store’s first Manager,” says Buckley. “I have no record of it, but the capsule has the Wal-Mart seal and I’d be willing to bet it’s official.”

Found just a few inches below the Wal-Mart parking lot, the grey-silver circular capsule is almost 2 feet in length and is 18 inches around.

“My best guess is the snow and dirt from ‘Trash Mountain’ worked away just enough of the pavement to show the capsule,” posits Buckley. “It’s really exciting! Once we sweep all this trash out into the ditches, we’ll pull the capsule up and take a good look at it.”

Set to Be Opened

Buckley says she “fully intends” to open the capsule.

“As soon as it’s cleared, I’m going to get all the assistant managers, support managers, and department managers out to open it with me.”

“Maybe we’ll even let a cashier watch.”

The North Bay bay will update this story once the capsule is opened.

UPDATE: THE CAPSULE HAS BEEN OPENED

Carol Buckley has confirmed that at 9:15 am the Wal-Mart time capsule was opened.

“We opened the capsule,” says Buckley. “And inside was nothing but more trash! Just pure garbage, packed tightly into the canister, and all of it from 1998.”

Among the garbage were empty bottles of Orbitz, crumpled plastic Dunk‑a‑roo containers, crushed Lunchables, flattened Gushers, “thousands and thousands” of cigarette butts, a “fully-filled and petrified” diaper, and one half-filled container of what appears to be Pepsi Blue.

“Disgusting,” spits Buckley. “To think that someone would fill a time capsule with garbage! To think that we went through the trouble of pushing all that trash into the ditch to just get more!”

“Nobody casually chucks trash into our parking lot except our customers,” fumes Buckley. “You can bet that I’ll have a cashier out here asap to get this capsule overturned and strewn about by the end of the day.’