For 15 years, David Lavalee guided hikers through the Columbia ice fields, and every year the journey seemed to take longer.
“I noticed I’d have to hike further and further with my clients just to see some ice,” remembers Lavalee.
The shrinking glaciers — combined with a viewing of the Oscar winning An Inconvenient Truth and a chance meeting with a scientist studying in the ice field — inspired him to pick up a camera and create his own feature documentary, looking at the way water and oil are influenced by each other.
“I’m pretty attached to glaciers, given I’m a skier, mountaineer, alpinist, hiking guide,” he says. “I decided I wanted to find out more about what’s going on.”
For the next four years, Lavalee (who moved to Nelson during filming) traveled across Western Canada, filming everywhere from Edmonton to Kitimat. The final project, White Water, Black Gold will get its first Nelson screening Tuesday.
Originally planned as a single summer project, once he started Lavalee says he realized the project had a far broader scope than he’d originally envisioned.
“I knew there were issues, but I didn’t know how widespread they were,” he says. “For example, I didn’t know there’s tailings ponds that are basically lining the banks of the Athabasca River... and I didn’t know that river flows into the Slave and the Mackenzie River, so those toxins would end up in the Arctic Ocean.”
Farmers in Saskatchewan and Manitoba pulled the film east of Alberta, while the Enbridge Northern Gateway Pipeline — which would like the Alberta oil sands with the B.C. coast — brought Lavalee’s home province into the story.
With its regional scope, Lavalee says White Water, Black Gold should resonate with Nelsonites just as much as with those living in the shadow of the tar sands.
“Ultimately what we’re talking about is the inextricable link between our use of water and our use of energy,” he says.
“I think it has resonance for all Canadians in that it’s really transforming our country.”
The documentary begins at 7 p.m. at Nelson’s United Church Tuesday Tickets are $8 in advance at Otter Books or $10 at the door.
