Research crews studying bears in Heiltsuk and Kitasoo-Xai’xais Territories. Back row (left to right): Laura Grant, Heather Bryan, Christina Service, Howard Humchitt, Kyle Artelle, Harvey Brown, Brandon Robinson and Krista Robinson. Front row: Rosie Child, Doug Neasloss, and Jessica Brown

May 9, 2013

Standing on a rocky outcrop in Salmon Bay, our field team spots a boat moving towards us on the horizon. As the boat approaches, we see our fellow bear researchers from Kitasoo Territory waving and grinning.

Today, our field crew—which is studying bears in Heitsuk Territory on what is now known as BC’s central coast—is joining the Kitasoo-Xai’xais crew from Klemtu for a day of training and to learn about each other’s projects. Our meeting takes place near the boundary of our two study areas, which contribute to a larger four Nation Central Coast Bear Working Group that is providing spatially seamless information about grizzly and black bears in the region. Both teams include local experts as well as members from Chris Darimont’s Applied Conservation Science Lab at the University of Victoria and the Raincoast Conservation Foundation.

Our day begins with us setting up a barbed-wire hair collection site, which we use for detecting and monitoring bears. From effective hammering techniques to rigorous record-keeping, both teams have finely tuned site set-up procedures developed over several field seasons. We enjoy sharing our experiences and knowledge to ensure that this year’s sample collection will be efficient and effective.

Laura and Brandon set up a remote camera.

Howard demonstrates good fencing technique

Howard and Christina discuss site set-up

Howard and Harvey demonstrate fencing

Jessica records site data

Kyle adds a rain hat to the pile

Once satisfied that our site is properly set up, we enjoy a picnic in the unusually warm and sunny weather. Afterwards, Doug Neasloss from the Spirit Bear Research Foundation takes us on a side trip to see pictographs and to search for a village site in a nearby watershed. We part with cheer at the end of the day, excited about the coming field season. Training is an annual ritual for our projects; this year’s joint training was particularly fun and we hope it will become a yearly tradition!

Canmore Leader   April 24, 2013

By Justin Parsons

An art exhibit that stirred up controversy in Calgary’s City Hall last week has been receiving a warm welcome in Canmore.

The Art for an Oil-Free Coast exhibit, a collection of works depicting Canada’s West coast in an effort to fuel the conversation about the proposed Northern Gateway pipeline, ruffled a few feathers when a handful of Calgary politicians found the message of the exhibit to be a bad fit for the halls of Canada’s oil and gas capital…

To read the full article please visit the Canmore Leader website.

Tue, Apr 16 : A controversial art exhibit at city hall can stay right where it is, even though under normal circumstances it would be forced out. The show has ties to a group that is against the northern gateway pipeline. Global’s Reid Fiest reports.

Click here to watch the video from the Global News broadcast.

Published Tuesday, Apr. 16 2013

DAWN WALTON AND NATHAN VANDERKLIPPE

Serene images of sea lions, spirit bears and cormorants are hardly cause for controversy, but they have created quite a stir in the oil and gas capital of Canada where they have been deemed too “political” as part of an anti-pipeline art exhibit.

The show, titled Art for an Oil-Free Coast, which features dozens of artists, including venerable Canadian wildlife painter Robert Bateman, landed this week inside Calgary City Hall targeting the proposed $6.5-billion Northern Gateway pipeline, which could carry Alberta oil to British Columbia for export.

The B.C.-based Raincoast Conservation Foundation, which is behind the exhibit that has been on tour for months, is auctioning the items (most have already been sold) to raise money for its ongoing anti-pipeline campaign.

On Tuesday, city officials told organizers that the atrium “will not be used for political events,” but nonetheless allowed the show to stay until Wednesday – its planned end date after a three-day visit…

To read the full article please visit the Globe and Mail website.

By Russ Ullyot

Michael Svob paints on the beach during an expedition organized by Raincoast Conservation Foundation to depict the biodiversity and integrated, ecological elements of the forest, intertidal, and ocean zones, and the people, flora and fauna that have lived there for thousands of years.

Canmore’s Solara Resort will host an exhibition of work from more than 40 artists that took up paintbrushes and carving tools to portray Canada’s west coast.

During a two-week period in June of 2012, a group of 50 renowned artists — including painter Robert Bateman and sculptor Craig Benson — travelled to the region on an expedition organized by Raincoast Conservation Foundation.

The exhibition, which will be in Canmore April 19-22, is in reaction to the proposed Northern Gateway pipeline by Enbridge and its international partners.

“We want to raise awareness of this issue, particularly the Northern Gateway issue,” said Raincoast Conservation Foundation’s Brian Falconer. “Like two out of three British Columbians, the artists all feel that this is a really, really wrong project. It’s in a really wrong place. It’s just a place that doesn’t need or want oil tankers.”

The goal of the artwork, noted Falconer, is to bring attention to the dramatic beauty and ecological diversity of B.C.’s north and central coasts that will be at risk if tankers are permitted to ship diluted bitumen through the channel.

The original artworks were all donated to be part of a travelling awareness show, which begins an Alberta tour April 15 in Calgary at the Atrium of the Calgary Municipal Building.

“We wanted to pick some places in Alberta where people have both a connection with nature but also an understanding of the resource issues,” said Falconer, who spent more than 20 years sailing and working along the proposed oil tanker route.

“Calgary was the obvious first choice, but Canmore is a place where people really connect with nature … it’s a beautiful, beautiful part of the world.”

The exhibition travelled through southern B.C. this past winter.

More than 80 per cent of the artwork that will be on display, which includes a $50,000 signature bronze by Benson entitled Raincoast Bowl, has already been sold to collectors through an online fundraising auction during the B.C. tour that ran October through January.

The opening event in the Theatre at Solara on April 19, beginning at 6 p.m., will feature a 22-minute documentary on the expedition entitled Reflections: Art for an Oil-Free Coast.

“It’s a really powerful film,” said Falconer. “We have a question and answer period after, and the conversations have been absolutely amazing.”

http://www.canmoreleader.com/2013/04/09/art-for-an-oil-free-coast-comes-to-canmore

 

April 23 at  7:00 pm and 9:15 pm UVic Cinecenta Theatre

Salmon Confidential is a new film on the government cover up of what is killing BC’s wild salmon. When biologist Alexandra Morton discovers BC’s wild salmon are testing positive for dangerous European salmon viruses associated with salmon farming worldwide, a chain of events is set off by government to suppress the findings. Tracking viruses, Morton moves from courtrooms, into British Columbia’s most remote rivers, Vancouver grocery stores and sushi restaurants. The film documents Morton’s journey as she attempts to overcome government and industry roadblocks thrown in her path and works to bring critical information to the public in time to save BC’s wild salmon.

Raincoast is hosting the film April 23 at UVic Cinecenta Theatre with showings at 7:00 pm and 9:15 pm

Click here for tickets and info

CBC News  Posted: Apr 14, 2013

Some of Canada’s best known artists have added their voices to opposition against the Enbridge Northern Gateway pipeline project.

Robert Bateman and Carol Evans are two of the artists whose works will be exhibited as part of the Art for an Oil-Free Coast exhibit, which opens Monday in Calgary. The donated original art will be sold at auction with all the proceeds going to Raincoast Conservation Foundation’s oil-free coast campaign.

“It’s the artists expressing their love of the B.C. coast and their fear for oil tanker traffic on the west coast,” says exhibit spokesman Brian Falconer…

To read the full article please visit the CBC News website.

Opening Night

Monday, April 15 th  6:00 pm
Calgary Public Library
616 Macleod Trail SE

Cash bar
Film screening of REFLECTIONS at 7:30 pm
Free admission

Exhibition Dates and Hours

Monday, April 15th  – Wednesday April 17
Open daily until  6:00 pm.
Atrium at the City of Calgary Municipal Building
​800 Macleod Trail SE
Free admission

Canmore

Opening Night

Friday April 19, 6 pm
Solara Resort Theatre
187 Kananaskis Way
Canmore, Alberta,

Exhibition Dates and Times

April 19-22, 2013
Solara Resort
187 Kananaskis Way
Canmore, Alberta

By Chris Genovali and Misty MacDuffee

April 3, 2013

By Chris Genovali and Misty MacDuffee

March 16, 2013

As dusk descends, an explosion of violence shatters the tranquility of the world’s largest remaining tract of unspoiled ancient temperate rainforest. The chase is on.

A frantic deer bolts from the woods only meters from where our zodiac floats on the glassy calm estuary waters. On its heels races a sea wolf in a blur of black fur and fangs Nostrils flaring, tongues flapping, predator and prey swim straight toward us, then veer off across the inlet.

Unable to overtake its swifter dinner on the hoof, the exhausted wolf abandons the chase and retreats to the rocky shore. There, it paces back and forth, eying us in frustration as hungry members of its pack howl for updates from deep within BC’s Great Bear Rainforest.

Named for the bears that inhabit its thickly forested islands and inlets – including grizzlies, American black bears and Spirit bears (a black bear born with a recessive gene that produces cream coloured fur) – this vast, mostly uninhabited archipelago twice the size of the Serengeti stretches from the northern tip of Vancouver Island to the Alaska border. It is also home to countless species of birds, marine life and other mammals, including coastal wolves that can hunt salmon from streams like bears and swim like sea otters…

Engine cut, our zodiac silently glides toward shore, where we spot a 400 pound grizzly and her fluffy cub grazing on shoreline sedges and giant-leafed skunk cabbage. Everyone tenses with excitement, but not fear, because we’re in good hands. With a decade of experience as a BC park ranger, Smith knows grizzlies and what safety precautions to take in their presence.

Bear shootings have dropped significantly since 2005, when the team of conservationists and scientists at Raincoast Conservation Foundation purchased the commercial hunting licence for a vast area here three times the size of Yellowstone National Park in an attempt to block access to trophy hunters. Despite continued illegal hunting, this innovative approach has helped protect bears and other trophy hunting targets like coastal wolves – already threatened by loss of habitat and a declining salmon supply – from the crosshairs of high-powered rifles…

To read the full article please visit the Vancouver Sun website.

Filmmaker Chris Malloy about to get a beer coloured tube. Photo Credit: Dean Azim

For those of you who missed us the first time around, Groundswell is screening at the University of Victoria this week as part of the two week long IdeaFest hosted by the Office of Vice-Presidents Research at UVic.  After the 25-minute film, a panel of Geography and ES scholars and a leader from the Heiltsuk Nation will discuss the proposed Enbridge Northern Gateway project, providing a current perspective from academia and indigenous leadership.

Where: University of Victoria in the Harry Hickman Building HHB B105

When: This Frida,y March 15 at 7:00pm - 9:00pm