The Valhalla Wilderness Society is proposing  the Selkirk Mountain Caribou Park to create an extended wildlife corridor and to protect unique habitat. The park would extend from the southern boarder of Glacier National Park down into the Kootenays and connect with Bugaboo Provincial Park and Goat Range Provincial Park. According the the society, the park would add over 27,000 hectares of wilderness connected to Glacier National Park. The park would not only provide much increased protected habitat for the endangered mountain caribou, it would also include an area of rare temperate rainforrest around the Incomappleux River. The forest is largely unprotected at the moment and is being actively logged in many areas.

The Incomappleux is a unique area of inland temperate rainforest. According to the Valhalla Wilderness Society, the area is home to 2,000 year-old trees , newly discovered species of lichen, and abundant biodiversity.  A Kelowna resident, Riel Marquardt, recently release a documentary on the Incomappleux area and it is well worth viewing to understand of why this area is so amazing. Riel’s movie can be viewed on-line at Culture Unplugged or it can be rented from Leo’s Video here in Kelowna.

So, what can you do to help save this area? Well, there is a bunch of stuff you can do.

• Get educated about the area.
• Read about the rainforest on the Valhalla Wilderness Societies website.
• Watch Riel’s video on Culture Unplugged.
• Like the Incomappleux on facebook.
• Sign the petition supporting the formation of the park (contact me directly to get a copy).
• Contact your MLA and tell them why this is so important.

Lets make our voices heard!!!

The American writer and activist Muriel Rukeyser wrote: “The universe is made of stories, not atoms.” While the physicists in the audience may not entirely agree with this statement, I think it rings true for at least how we perceive the world around us. That is to say, that the narrative of our society influences how we perceive our universe. The value that we place on our planet comes from stories created by us, and from the generations before us. So when we consider Sustainable Communities, it is these narratives that we need to review.

Because of my limited time, I ask to be forgiven for the broad and blunt generalizations I am about to make. These are that we live in a society whose stories are compelled by a model of economics that is outdated and broken. A model that measures prosperity only by the amount that we consume and does not consider what we destroy. A model that does not value anything it does not know how to measure in dollars.

You see, the stories from our European past tell us that this planet is an enormous ball of inexhaustible resources and that continual growth is good for everyone. These stories often ignore the very processes and resources that keep us alive. Things like the natural purification of water; the pollination of plants by insects; plant life that turns carbon dioxide into oxygen so we can breathe; the decomposition of wastes by insects and fungi; the list goes on.

These processes are referred to as Ecosystem Services—stuff nature does for us, for free. Of course, some have tried to put a dollar value on these services and an average figure is approximately $38 Trillion dollars annually. That is, if we had to manually pollinate the fruit trees, replenish the oxygen, break down our wastes, it would cost us $38 Trillion dollars every year. Clearly, this is not a viable option.

But knowing these things is not enough. History is filled with examples where information was available, but the dominant culture would not accept it. Galileo comes to mind. That is why cultural change, changing our narrative, is possibly as important as the science itself.

As a photographer and a student of geography, I realized there was a role I could play in re-telling the narrative. The slide show you are about to see documents some of the amazing things that nature does for us. But, as nature does so well, the intricacies are hidden in the simplicity of the scene. Some of the locations are exotic, like the glaciers of the Rocky Mountains; the Colorado River in the Grand Canyon; the coastal areas of the Olympic Peninsula and Long Beach. Visiting these places has always filled me with awe and wonder at their beauty, but now I add to that wonder the amazing things these landscapes do for us. Some of the locations are not so exotic; indeed, some of the images are from my own back yard. Thankfully, the gifts of nature surround us everywhere.

While I hope you enjoy the aesthetic beauty of the images, I want you to think about how these places make life possible. I have added some text to each image to help with this, but it is not the whole story. Please consider: “to keep these ecosystems intact, what can I do without?” And ask yourself “how does this fit into the narrative of my world?” I hope that these images will also renew in you a feeling of wonder for the amazing place that is planet Earth.

I would like to leave you with one last thought:    The planet is, by nature, sustainable.

Thank you.

The biology class is first year level where we talk about the building blocks of life. The different kinds of cells–prokaryotic and eukaryotic–and all the stuff that goes into them. We talk about water molecules and hydrogen bonds. DNA, peptides, and amino acids. It is a great way to re-awaken a wonder for life in general and how amazing it is at all levels. A great video we recently watched was this YouTube clip of an amoeba digesting a single celled protist. If you watch on the right-hand side, you can see the amoeba wrapping its pseudopodia around the protist. The amoeba then excretes a digestive enzyme to break down the protist. The crazy thing is that you then see the protist wriggling around, trying to escape. This is a single celled organism we are watching having what equates to a flight response. Interesting!?

Tuesday afternoon is a second year philosophy class called Knowledge and Reality. If you are a purist, that would be Epistemology and Metaphysics. To para-phrase, it asks what do we know about reality and how do we know that we know it? Currently, we are reviewing the meditations of Rene Descartes. He’s the guy that wrote “I think therefore I am”. This is around the question “how do I know I exist?” He argues that the very fact that I am having these thoughts must mean that I exist. If I have these thoughts, how can I not exist? It all seems self evident, but what Descartes was trying to do was to take everything back to basics and see what kind of foundation our knowledge was based on. He also asks how we can trust our senses and how do we know that the things we see really exist. Again, this all may seem a bit self evident, but think The Matrix. The work of Descartes has been credited, in part, for the story-line of the film.

It all make you go hmmm, eh? How do we know that protists and amoeba are not thinking things? How do we know that we are not the equivalent of an amoeba inside some larger organism? How did all of this marvel and intricacy come about? Cool stuff to contemplate. One thing it really does for me it to renew my excitement about life. It truly is an amazing and precious thing.

If this all seems a bit on the heavy side I’ll end this post with a clip of one of my favorite philosophical statements–that no matter how much you think, there is often alcohol involved

Night Sky above Kelowna

I need my eight hours of sleep each day. So, when my brother-in-law Simon invited me on a night-photography trip starting at 1am, I had mixed emotions. Those emotions lasted about 5 seconds and I said yes. Simon arrived at my home just before 1am and we drove up to the Myra Canyon trestles. The trestles are the site of an old railway that wound its way through the hills above Kelowna. There are some great vantage points looking down onto the lights of the city, as well as the ability to hide from the same light pollution and get a good look at the night sky. Wednesday night was also reported to be a peak time for the meteor shower that occurs every August  in this part of the world.

We arrived at the parking lot, donned our backpacks, and headed off down the old rail bed into the moon-less night. It really is amazing how much light a city of 100,000 people radiates. We  walked confidently down the trail and over the trestles with no need for a flashlight.

Night photography has always been a bit on an enigma for me. Many of the rules of exposure go out the window and everything behaves differently. I first tried to capture the night sky using film years ago. Having to wait a week to get my film back from processing really made it a trial and error endeavor. Digital has certainly changed that, however, it is still not without its challenges. Mainly from noise introduced by the long exposures. But the biggest challenge is common to both mediums and that is the issue of focus. How do you focus on something when it’s dark outside?!! There are these little pin pricks of light in the sky, that are quite dim in the viewfinder, and I am supposed to focus on that?! The problem is especially bad when I am using a wide angle lens as the dots of light are even smaller.

So, here is what I do. First thing is to switch to manual focus.  Look at your composition and find some object that is relatively big in the viewfinder and somewhat distant. This is going to be your infinity focus point. Zoom in on this object ( if you use a zoom) and place it in the middle of your frame. Then, rock the focus ring back and forth, narrowing in on what you think is sharp. Be careful not to activate the light meter, as the display in the viewfinder will affect your night vision. Once you think the subject is in focus, recompose the image and shoot. Depth of field will give you some wriggle room here, so choose your focal length and aperture thoughtfully.

For the image at the top of the page I used a 20mm focal length and was at ISO 400. Exposure was f 5.0 for 22.5 minutes.  The lens is a 12-24mm zoom and so I did not have a lot of extra focal length to play with. I just concentrated on the tree branches in the foreground and the stars behind.

The image below was a little different. I used a 35mm prime lens, still at ISO 400. To focus, I placed my headlamp on the trestle and shone it at the railing about half way in. I could then go back to my camera and manually focus on the illuminated railing. Aperture was f5.0 – enough depth of field for the stars to be sharp. The shutter was open for seven minutes and during this time I walked down the trestle shining my headlamp on the railing on one side. I then walked back, shining the light on the other side. I think it adds a little interest to an otherwise average shot. The lights of Kelowna create the glow on the horizon.

So what about the meteors? They were out but not in the huge numbers promised–at least not to my eyes. Even though several of them streaked across my open shutter, they were simply not bright enough to show up. Was it worth the five hours of sleep deprivation? For sure! The riddle of night photography is a little more understandable! Thanks for getting me out there Simon!

Myra Canyon trestle at night

After returning from a trip to the Rockies I am reflecting on what a lucky person I am. First, I was able to do this trip with my lovely partner Shaunet and our dog Summit. Shaunet’s idea of a good time is sleeping in a tent with me, drinking wine around a campfire at night, and spending the day hiking in the mountains. Like I said, I’m a lucky guy! Summit’s idea of a good time involves sleeping, lying in glacial-fed streams, sleeping, scrambling on rocks, and wondering when we are all going to sleep in that tent-den thing.

I have now been in Canada for twenty years and I am still awe-struck by the beauty of the Canadian Rockies. On this trip we concentrated on a stretch of the Icefields Parkway just north of Lake Louise. As we traveled through this area, and hiked into the alpine, we met tourists from all over the world that have come to marvel at the beauty of this place. It is then I feel really lucky because I live here! Western Canada is simply one of the most stunning places I have been on the planet. OK, I have only been to a few other countries. And, I am sure there are other prettier places in the world. But, for the moment, this is tops for me and I feel really lucky to be here.

I also have to feel lucky for some of the great people I have met recently. One person in particular allowed me to borrow his Nikon 80-400mm VR lens. It is quite a beast which I lugged to every location we went. Some times I was questioning the wisdom of this as it is certainly not a landscape lens. It’s real purpose on this trip is wildlife. Then, we crested an alpine bench in Wallace Pass and in front of us was a herd of Bighorn Sheep. Out came the big lens and it all became worth-while. Then I was just thankful for the amazing wildlife that still inhabits these mountains.

The image above was shot at the short end of the focal range. I have some other images at full zoom, but they will have to wait for another post. As you can imagine, I have a lot of photos to work though. Not sure if I am feeling so lucky about that!

Canada day is also a time I reflect on life in Canada. As many on you know, Canada didn’t choose me, but I chose to live here in Canada. It is an amazing country with a geographic diversity that still captures my imagination, twenty years on since I first arrived. I also chose Canada because of the people that live here and their general attitude towards others. Canadians are, as a whole, wonderful, kind, tolerant, and generous people. So, in a kind of schmaltzy–and might I say Canadian–way, thanks Canada for being such an incredible place, and thanks to the people of Canada for being who you are.

As always, there are things that don’t sit so well with me. I have bit of a problem with the whole “Happy Birthday Canada, you are 143 years old today”. In many ways, Canada Day represents the day that we officially said to the people that were here first “we don’t really care about you, this place is ours now”. Depending on your point of view, what happened over the last couple of centuries to the indigenous peoples of Canada ranged from a misguided attempt to help and cohabitate to complicit genocide.

I know I cant change what happened in the past. But I do know that the way future generations view this year, this decade, and the people that inhabit this time, is up to us. The choices we make– from how we interact with people in the street, the way we view the world around us, and the political parties and causes we support–all make a difference. Those choices set the tone for the national consciousness and define who we are as a people.

At the risk of being cliched, there are two Gandhi quotes I will finish with. First there is the ubiquitous “Be the change that you want to see in the world”. If we want a better world, we have to practice living a better life, whatever that looks like in your mind. But with issues like the gulf oil spill, economic meltdowns, police behavior at the G20 in Toronto, and the general conflict, strife, inequity and poverty that engulfs a large portion of the planet, it is easy to loose heart. I know I feel this way sometimes, but in the words of Gandhi “Whatever you do may seem insignificant to you, but it is most important that you do it”.

I love it when people take their ideology and apply it practically. This is exactly what Curtis and Eve at Green City Acres have done. To quote from their website:

Our mission is to foster social and environmental change through the production of local organic food, with minimal use of fossil fuels, and to help, teach, and empower people to start growing their own.

Cool! So, I decided to spend a bit of time shadowing Eve and Curtis with my camera and try to capture some of what they do. I already knew Curtis from a number of environmental/sustainability groups around Kelowna, so I knew he was the real deal. What I wasn’t ready for was just how committed they both were and what they had achieved in a relatively short space of time.

The first morning I spent with them was to be harvest time. I followed Curtis and Eve around as they harvested and prepared their produce for the following-days farmers market. Of course, this would be a bit of a different exercise as they farm multiple properties in the inner-Kelowna area and do everything by bicycle. One of the main concepts behind Green City Acres is a technique called SPIN farming, which translates as Small Plot INtensive farming. Simply put, you find home-owners who are willing to trade their back (or front) yards in return for a weekly supply of fresh produce. You then plant a few different crops in each yard–and assuming you can find several yards to farm–you end up with a great selection of produce grown in an urban setting. Sounds easy, right?

Well, these two make it look easy, but at first glance they seem to do everything the hard way. To be true to their own mission statement — “minimal use of fossil fuels“–  Green City Acres not only shuns the uses of petroleum based fertilizers and pesticides, they also totally avoid the use of petroleum based transportation. Everything is done by bicycle. Traveling between sites for harvesting, transporting produce and work tools (even the roto-tiller) is done by bike.

And so I arrived on my own bike, bright and early on what turned out to be a very dreary and drizzly day. I followed Eve around the garden as she harvested salad greens and radishes and carefully cleaned and bunched scallions ready for the market. It was great to see this going on in a location surrounded by a major road, an apartment building, and other residences whose yards mainly consist of lawn.

Then it was time to head off to the next backyard to see what was planted there. The photo at the top of this post is what I saw and I really was not ready for the glorious sight. It is a great example of what these two have done in peoples yards and I was totally blown away! I was in heaven with my camera photographing from every angle conceivable (at least angles that I could conceive of).

As I mentioned before, it was a dreary and drizzly day but we still went everywhere by bike. Really, it was not a big deal. We were dressed for it and were already working outside anyway. Curtis and I had a great time chatting away as we rode the side-streets of Kelowna traveling from one location to the other. Yep, we could have done the same in a pick-up truck, but it would have been somehow different. Sorry about the cliche, but there was something very “Zen” about the whole thing. By the end of our morning together, Curtis and Eve had harvested and prep’ed a ton of food.  Curtis kept on exclaiming to me “look at all this stuff!” Yep, they have grown a lot of food in only a few backyards.

5:30 am on Saturday morning came pretty early for me. This was the time I had arranged to meet at the Green City base to follow our intrepid duo to the Kelowna Farmers Market. I did OK, but it was more like 5:45 when I got there. By that time Curtis and Eve had almost completed loading the bike trailers. All that was left to do was tie them down and make the journey of several kilometers to the market.

Everything is transported by bike and trailer. All the produce, the tent, display baskets, everything.  It was really very cool to be cycling down the road next to the loaded bikes. With hardly any traffic on the road it certainly made photographing them a lot easier! I also love the fact the Eve changes out of her work jeans and and wears very stylish dresses to the market. You gotta dress for the occasion!

We turn into the Farmers Market lot and for a while stand in the line-up with the other vehicles waiting to be allocated our area. As I look around amongst the vans, pick-up trucks, and cars, I am not surprised to see that we are the only bicycles in the lot. Next, it is time to setup the stall and they are ready to go.

In a number of previous posts I have written about transition towns and the need for the re-localization of our food production. Curtis and Eve are showing us that it can indeed be done. It can also be done without tons of expensive machinery on huge acreages. Before I get criticized for being overly “pollyanna” about this,  I want to add that these two work very hard to grow and harvest the vegetables they sell. Curtis’s enthusiasm for what he is doing only serves to punctuate the deep passion that drives him to do what he does. Someone else may not be as successful. And, it is still early days for Green City Acres. This is the first year of production and Kelowna has been blessed with an unusual level of early-season rainfall. The proof will be in the long term viability of the venture. However, whatever trials come their way, I expect Curtis and Eve will meet them head on and with a smile.

A big thanks to Eve and Curtis for letting me hang around and continually poke a camera lens in their faces. It was a total pleasure hanging out with you both!

One of the things I really love about events like this is that everyone is so happy and just having a great time. Walking around Centennial Park in Armstrong, before the start of the ride, that attitude radiated from all the participants. There was laughter and smiles everywhere you turned.

After the start of the ride I headed out to the the top of the first big hill on the course. It is a great spot to photograph from as the riders are traveling slowly and there is a great backdrop of the hill falling away in the background. I did get my fair share of good natured admonishments about being in such a cruel place, but that’s the nature of the job

One of the really big challenges about this kind of photography is that there are no re-shoots. Either you have the shot or you don’t. Also, you don’t know who wants photos after the event, so you need to get great shots of everyone. With time to squeeze off maybe two frames, it is a great skill-builder for a photographer. When I shoot a wedding, or do some advertising work, the client only see the images that I think are the best; shots that I am proud of and best represent what the client wants. It is quite likely that they will see less than 50% of the frames shot. On a shoot like the Century Ride I post around 80% of the images from the day. It really keeps you on your toes! Focus? Composition? Exposure? Depth-of-Field? 1,100 times! I am happy to say I get it right most of the time!

Later in the day I went to the last big hill at around the 87 km mark. I am amazed at the speed the lead pack comes by at. These folks are still pushing really hard! But, this is to be expected as these people are the competitive riders of the group and this is what they do. What amazes me even more is the attitude of the recreational riders that come through, not far behind, and are still all smiles and having a great time. It makes my job even more enjoyable as we share some road-side banter about, once again, being at the top of a hill to catch them “at their best”.

I really want to thank Lisa Jaffary, who is the events founder, and Heather Stewart, for encouraging me to come to last years event and asking me back this year. It has been a joy working with you all and being part of this fantastic event. Also a big thanks to my partner Shaunet who accompanied me on this shoot. She handled important jobs like pre-sales, camera assistant, coffee provider, and great conversation while we waited for riders to appear.  Thanks to everyone.

If you would like to see all of the images from the 2010 Okanagan-Shuswap Century Ride, then check out the gallery on my website.

In Mexico, we cannot wait. We cannot wait for the developed countries to make a decision. . . Some of them, like the U.S., could take another eternity to decide on what they had decided since the Kyoto Protocol. . . We know that the quality of life, and the future, is at risk. And I mean the future of a great deal of humanity.

Harper, of course, continued to sit on the fence and deflect his lack of action to the US. But the reality is that, with Harper’s firm background in mainstream economics and climate change denial leanings, he is looking for any excuse to do nothing.

So what is the Canadian government doing to reduce climate change emissions and protect its environment? Currently, the “omnibus” bill C-9 is before parliament and it seeks to “reform” the Environmental Assessment Act. It actually seeks to reform all kinds of stuff, that is why it is called an omnibus bill. Governments hide all kinds of legislation in these bills and hopes no-one will look. There are a number of organizations that have issues with this reform and, as you can imagine, many of them are environmental groups. While searching the net for information on this part of the bill, I came across a nice summary on Globe-net.com. In their article Proposed amendments to the Canadian Environmental Assessment Act, they contrast the proposed changes to a recent Supreme Court of Canada ruling based on the current Canadian Environmental Assessment Act (CEAA). The case was between MiningWatch Canada and the Department of Fisheries and Oceans and the ruling was in favour of MiningWatch.  What Globe-Net highlights is that the CEAA reform in Bill C-9 serves to “fix” all of the aspect of the Acts where the Federal Government lost this case. Here is one of the proposed amendments:

15.1(1) Despite section 15, the Minister may, if the conditions that the Minister establishes are met, determine that the scope of the project in relation to which an environmental assessment is to be conducted is limited to one or more components of that project.

So, by being able to change the scope of the assessment, the ministry is free to pick only certain areas of the project and can then say that an environmental assessment was completed. In addition, if the project in question is a large energy project, the CEAA will no longer be responsible for the assessment. Guess who will be? Either the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission or the National Energy Board, depending on who’s project it is. So much for independent oversight!

The first reading of this bill has already passed–143 to 120. Who voted yes? From the stats posted on Openparliment.ca, only the Conservatives. The Bloc all voted No. The NDP all voted No and three didn’t vote. It was the gutless Liberals that, through their fence sitting allowed this bill to pass. What I mean by fence sitting is that 42 Liberals voted No, and 35 DID NOT VOTE! Of course, we know the reasons that the Liberals did this. It is because “Canadians don’t want an election”. I am really sick of this response. The Liberals are letting a minority government push through legislation that the majority don’t want, but they don’t want to make a fuss about it. How Canadian, eh?

So, before this becomes too much of a rant, I’ll cover the climate change aspect of things.  The most recent bill before Parliament covering this topic was Bill C-311, the Climate Change Accountability Act. It was defeated in its 3rd reading 149 to 136. Every Conservative member voted against it. What are you going to do then?? Write to Michael Ignatieff and tell him to grow some cajones and tell him your thoughts on environmental protection and climate change. Follow up with letters to you local MP’s and Stephen Harper and tell them what you think.

Transition Towns

I still think some of the best Good News stories around–when it comes to environmental issues–are those about Transition Towns. So, I’m going to start off with some links on Transition Town articles and info.

The Council of Canadians has provided a list of Canadian cities that are official Transition Towns and those that are “mulling” it over. Not surprisingly Nelson, BC, is on the list, but maybe a little more surprisingly, Vancouver BC, and Ottawa and Guelph Ontario are also on the list. For some additional info on the principles of Transition Towns, check out the Transition Network website. Powell River also has a fairly comprehensive website for their Transition Town initiative. Take a look at Transition Town Powell River.

Deep Horizon Fallout.

The issues in the Gulf of Mexico has got some people talking about why we are drilling in such difficult and challenging locations. Those that have an understanding of Peak Oil already know the answer to that question. But Peak Oil “believers” have spent some time ousted in the lunatic fringe.  As the reality of Peak Oil gets closer though, it has also started to hit the mainstream. Today, it got about as mainstream as it can get. In Obama’s presidential news conference he said:

The fact that oil companies now have to go a mile underwater and then drill another three miles below that in order to hit oil tells us something about the direction of the oil industry. Extraction is more expensive, and it is going to be inherently more risky. And so that’s part of the reason you never heard me say, “Drill, baby, drill.” Because we can’t drill our way out of the problem. It may be part of the mix as a bridge to a transition to new technologies and new energy sources. But we should be pretty modest in understanding that the easily accessible oil is  already been sucked up out of he ground, and as we are moving forward the technology gets more complicated, the oil sources are more remote, and that means that there’s probably going to end up being more risk. And we as a society are going to have to make some very serious determinations in terms of what risks are we willing to accept. And that’s part of what the commission I think is going to have to look at. I will tell you, though, that understanding we need to grow, we’re going to be consuming oil for our industries, for how people live in this country, we’re going to have to start moving on this transition.

Wow! That’s some pretty heavy stuff–emphasis mine. It will be interesting to see what commentary, and possible action, comes out of this. I cut some of the dialog out, but you can view the video here on C-SPAN. The relevant section is from 49:40 to 51:54.

There is also an interesting opinion piece in The New Yorker entitled Oil Shocks that could have served as a script for Obama’s quotes above. This part of the article really caught my eye from a Canadians perspective:

This year, the United States’ largest single source of imported oil is expected to be the Canadian tar sands. Oil from the tar sands comes in what is essentially a solid form: it has to be either strip-mined, a process that leaves behind a devastated landscape, or melted out of the earth using vast quantities of natural gas.

It is interesting to put this in context with Obama’s statement “we as a society are going to have to make some very serious determinations in terms of what risks are we willing to accept“. It seems that the Canadian Government and Oil industry have already made that determination as the tar sands continue to receive international coverage as both an environmental and public health nightmare.