A beautiful Kootenay weekend brought out more than 2,500 onlookers to take in the action at this year’s Bootleg Gap Sled Dog Races in Kimberley.

Kimberly's Bootleg Sled Dog Races raised close to $18,000 for the East Kootenay Children’s Fund. Photo courtesy Bruce Kirkby

“We had three less competitors than last year,” explains a grinning event volunteer John Boucher, “but at least two of those were in Whistler doing Olympic duties, so we can’t complain.”

The event, which included a silent auction, raised close to $18,000 for the East Kootenay Children’s Fund. This money will help cover expensive travel costs for children and families who need to travel for treatment.

The success of this event sure gives the many organizers, racers, and volunteers a lot to wag, er, brag about.

Lead photo courtesy Bruce Kirkby

The answer is cold smoke – that white, light, powder snow that falls free all winter long across much of British Columbia, but that’s especially abundant here in the Kootenays.

Nelson's backcountry Cold Smoke Powderfest comes as Whitewater contemplates future ideas for expansion, including plans to expand into critical habitat for the south Selkirk endangered mountain caribou herd. Courtesy Whitewater

Cold smoke. Trailing behind your skis like dust on a summer logging road.

Snorkel-deep on blower days, fresh, light-as-air Kootenay powder has the elevating power to jar relationships, disrupt promising careers and turn fine upstanding citizens into disreputable ski bums. Given that one ski run in cold smoke is enough to change a life, perhaps it’s no wonder that the unrivalled lightness of skiing in the Kootenays has attracted an entire tribe of skidonists – a community where lives revolve around mountains and the need to shred.

Heads up: The good news for newbies is that the cold-smoke scene is the focus of the 4th annual Cold Smoke Powderfest, leaving tracks March 5 to 8 at Nelson’s Whitewater Resort. And with a full slate of clinics – from an Introduction to Freeheel (Telemark) to Steeps in the Backcountry and Advanced Touring Ski and Avalanche Awareness Clinics – there is something for everyone: from the polypro-clad, bearded backcountry tele-rats to the Ditrani-guilded gondola queens who’ve been eying the backcountry.

Plus: the Cold Shot Foto Face Off promises to bring some of the best ski-culture photographers together for a visual orgy of skidonism, a poker run, banked slalom, slopestyle, randonee rally and annual Cold Smoke King and Queen contests.

The good news for newbies is that the cold-smoke scene is the focus of the 4th annual Cold Smoke Powderfest, leaving tracks March 5 to 8 at Nelson’s Whitewater Resort.Courtesy Ralph Grant

Environment alert: Nelson’s backcountry fest comes as Whitewater contemplates future ideas for expansion, including plans to expand into critical habitat for the south Selkirk endangered mountain caribou herd. These critters embody the essence of wild winter backcountry mojo, and indeed help define what the Kootenays are all about. But less than 50 mountain caribou remain in the Selkirks and every kilometre of remaining habitat is critical. So if you bump into event organizers, please ask them to pass on a request to the owners to confine the resort expansion plans to already-impacted Apex Creek and to keep out of pristine Qua Creek. Part of any backcountry fest should entail protecting the backcountry. Caribou love cold smoke, too!

Lead photo courtesy Brian Sproule

by Dave Quinn

Kicking Horse Resort's big-mountain triathlon: Wrangle the Chute, February 6 and 7.

Not only do competitors have to style their way down some of Kicking Horse’s extreme, leg-burning chutes, they then face a massive terrain park where the sky is literally the limit for spins and tricks. After that, competitors gear up for the final and most gruelling challenge of this big-mountain triathlon – the bucking bronco. And you can be sure that at a resort with a name like Kicking Horse, this is no easy ride.

To view the huckin’ and buckin’ action in person, get yerself to Heaven’s Door Yurt in Crystal Bowl at high noon on February 6 and 7. And if all that skiin’ and bronc’ ridin’, live DJ’s and western-style bar-b-q don’t tucker you out and fill you up, you can always hit the Texas Hold’em poker contest at the Day Lodge, starting at 6 p.m. 

Yippee Kai-yai-yay!

Photos courtesy Andrew Wheelhouse Photos: moonrakerphotography.com

While most Kootenay golf courses lie dormant and silent under winter’s white blanket, Kimberley’s Bootleg Gap will howl to life on February 20 and 21 with B.C.’s second annual Bootleg Sled Dog Races

I'll be blogging from the races and reporting back on how much money gets raised; so shoot me a line about your own highlights/racing stories and we'll get the word out. –Dave

by Dave Quinn

Last year’s Bootleg Sled Dog Races were a huge hit for racers and spectators alike. Snow flew, tongues lolled, competitors and the crowd hooted, hollered and barked for joy. And best of all, more than $18,000 was raised for the East Kootenay Friends of Children Fund, which helps offset travel costs for families of children who need to travel for specialized medical treatment.

Noticeably absent from this year’s February event, however, will be the canines from local Adrenaline Dog Sled Tours – they’ll be at the Olympics on an important and covert mission, delivering “as-yet-unspecified” performers to the outdoor stages in Whistler (while showcasing B.C. tourism for Olympic spectators from around the world, of course). But even without the celebrated Adrenaline racers, the event remains a fabulous chance to experience one of the most unique winter sports attractions in B.C., with high-speed, family oriented competition, a glorious setting at the foot of the Purcell Mountains in the expansive Kootenay Valley – and all for a good cause, to boot.

So harness up the team and mush your way to Bootleg Gap Golf Course in Kimberley – for one of the most memorable winter events of the year. See you there! 

>>I’ll be blogging from the races and reporting back on how much money gets raised; so shoot me a line about your own highlights/racing stories and we’ll get the word out

Photos: courtesy Bootleg Sled Dog Races

As the entire Lower Mainland rumbles and hums with Olympic anticipation, my home town of Kimberley feels a long way off from all the hype and excitement of the world’s greatest winter sports extravaganza. Some 907 kilometres away, in fact.

courtesy Bruce Kirkby

This daunting distance from the Kimberley Nordic Trails to the Olympic Nordic Ski venue in the Callaghan Valley isn’t fazing a group of young Kimberley athletes, however. The cross-country skiers of the local Jackrabbits Track Attack Program are getting into the Olympic spirit by skiing 907 km on Kimberley’s world-class Nordic trail system. Aged nine to 12, the skiers have divided the daunting distance into 180-km sections and are charting their journey one kilometre at a time on the Kimberley Nordic Club’s warming-hut wall.

While they may not be front and centre as Olympic athletes from around the world cross the finish line at the Callaghan Valley Nordic events, these young athletes from the B.C. Interior embody the essence of the Olympic spirit, and are willing to ski nearly 1,000 km to celebrate it, one kick and glide at a time.

The lower mainland is caught up in medal fever. While the rest of us from “beyond Hope”, may not feel the impacts of the games directly, most of us feel strongly, one way or the other, about the Olympics. What are athletes/sports fans/artists in your community doing to celebrate the Olympics? Send me a tweet @KootenayDave to let me know.

Lead photo courtesy Bruce Kirkby.

OLYMPIC UPDATE

Red Mountain’s Canadian Freeskiing Championships, Rossland

Helmet?  Check.

Goggles clear, avalanche gear secure?  Check.

Red Mountain's Canadian Open Freeskiing Championships: The skier’s sole mission is to ski gnarly, cliff-riddled, hellish steep terrain normally reserved for mountain goats and birds – and not only survive but make it look good.

Run burned into memory? Drop in, carve hard right, drop speed for five-metre cliff, recover from choppy landing, head left, drop snow pillow-line next to broken tree, pick up speed for next hit, avoid thick trees below, head right again to fat cliff. Stomp landing you can’t see from above. Shred to bottom of run.  Ok.

Heart pounding. Ski tips hang over an airy drop-in, and the entire world drops away from this ridge-top perch to a vertiginous world of white. 3-2-1… Dropping!

This is what freeskiers and spectators alike expected at the 9th annual Canadian Open Freeskiing Championships at Rossland’s Red Mountain Resort this last weekend: January 23 to 24, when the skier’s sole mission was to ski gnarly, cliff-riddled, hellish steep terrain normally reserved for mountain goats and birds – and not only survive but make it look good.

While you’re there, ski a line and raise a glass to Captain Jack Carey, a Red Mountain local and long-time director of the Canadian Open Freeskiing Championships.

A panel of judges evaluated each skier, tallying scores based on style, flow, difficulty of line and any tricks they managed to squeeze into their extreme ski lines.

Sound like fun?  Head to Red Mountain February 21 to 23 to watch dozens of elite athletes from around the world, plus local favourites Alex Berg, Colston Villanueva-Beatson and Fernie’s Luke Nelson, fresh off a January 12th third-place finish at the Subaru Canadian Freeskiing Championships in Revelstoke, compete for $10,000 in total prizes.

While you’re there, ski a line and raise a glass to Captain Jack Carey, a Red Mountain local and long-time director of the Canadian Open Freeskiing Championship, who died this past year. Jack was one of the characters who make Kootenay Ski towns what they are.

Photos: Courtesy Red Mountain

by Dave Quinn

Background

The Flathead River rises in the often overlooked southeast corner of British Columbia like some mythical creature born in the shadows of imagination. From here it ripples south across the U.S. border, mingles momentarily with Montana’s historic Clark Fork River, then joins the great Columbia in the race to the Pacific. Protected by a ring of jagged Rocky Mountain peaks and logging roads with triple-digit kilometre markers, the far reaches of the Canadian Flathead are a bone-jarring, tire-puncturing two-hour drive from the nearest town, the East Kootenay community of Fernie. Understandably, the headwaters of the transborder Flathead have only recently begun to share their secrets.

The 158,000-hectare watershed is considered by many to be the lynchpin for wildlife diversity in the southern Rocky Mountains. The Flathead shelters more grizzly bears than any other non-coastal region in North America, the highest number of vascular plant species in Canada and some of the purest water on the planet. Perhaps most important, the largest unpopulated valley in southern Canada provides critical breeding habitat, particularly for wide-ranging carnivores such as grizzlies, wolverine and lynx whose home ranges can encompass thousands of square kilometres. The high mortality rates of carnivores due to hunting or human encroachment on habitat makes breeding grounds crucial pieces in the conservation puzzle. The Flathead is possibly the most important such wildlife refuge in the southern Rockies.

“No other region along the Canada-U.S. border sustains such a diversity of wildlife and ecosystems.”

–Mark Angelo, Rivers Chair/Outdoor Recreation Council (ORC) of B.C., and Order of Canada and Order of B.C. recipient

Unfortunately, remoteness does not equal protection. Sprawling clear-cuts now claw their way to meet the alpine, the scars of increasing off-road vehicle traffic are seen even in the valley’s farthest reaches and so-called “mountaintop removal” open-pit coal mines are being proposed for this unique drainage. “No other region along the Canada-U.S. border sustains such a diversity of wildlife and ecosystems,” notes Mark Angelo, Rivers Chair for the 120,000-member Outdoor Recreation Council (ORC) of B.C., and an Order of Canada and Order of B.C. recipient. Yet despite ever-increasing human incursions over the last 10 years, the Flathead appears to have been abandoned by government decision-makers.

It has taken Cline Mining Corporation’s proposal of a two-million-tonne-per-year open-pit coalmine in the upper Flathead to bring tensions to a head, reigniting a century-old debate over the fate of this wild valley. In March 2007, ORC placed the Flathead atop its annual list of endangered B.C. rivers, ahead of more famous coastal cousins such as the Fraser, Skeena and Stikine. Contaminated runoff from large-scale open-pit mining would poison the Flathead, which flows directly into Montana’s Glacier National Park and Flathead Lake. “While mining is a major industry in our province, many British Columbians have expressed the view that there are some places just not appropriate to mine. The Flathead River is one of them,” says Angelo.

“While mining is a major industry in our province, many British Columbians have expressed the view that there are some places just not appropriate to mine. The Flathead River is one of them.” 

The Flathead River rubs shoulders with wilderness royalty: bounded to the east by Canada’s Waterton Lakes National Park and to the south by Glacier National Park, crown of the U.S. national park system. In 1932, these transborder parks were united to form the world’s first International Peace Park and have since received a UNESCO World Cultural Heritage Site designation. But conservationists insist a critical chunk is missing in the Waterton-Glacier complex. A glance at a map reveals what looks like a bite taken out of the preserve’s protected core – in the B.C. portion of the region.

Discussions about a park in the Flathead are not new. As early as 1911, conservationists such as Kutenai Brown, Waterton’s first park superintendent, acknowledged the superlative wildlife values of the Flathead Valley. In his March 1911 Report of the Superintendent, Brown wrote, “It seems advisable to greatly enlarge this park . . . to have a preserve and breeding ground in conjunction with the United States’ Glacier Park.” But it has taken the advent of modern wildlife biology survey methods, including radio collaring and DNA hair snagging, for scientists to truly understand the Flathead’s contribution to the southern Rockies ecosystem.

The Environmentalists’ View

Biologist Bruce McLellan has spent much of the past 25 years raising his family in a cabin in the Flathead Valley while working on one of the world’s longest-running grizzly bear studies. “On the coast, salmon are a major food source, so that determines where you find significant grizzly populations. Here in the Interior, it is huckleberries,” says McLellan, “and the Flathead has a lot of huckleberries. Yet huckleberries are just one reason why the Flathead supports such an uncommonly high density of grizzlies. The valley is also the breeding ground for grizzlies in all the surrounding areas,” notes McLellan.

Yet despite nearly a century of advocacy, the southeast corner of B.C. is noticeably free of what conservationists call “green blobs” – nature sanctuaries that serve as breeding grounds for neighbouring wildlife populations. 

Grizzlies aren’t the only members of the “claw and fang” clan to call the Flathead home, however. Sixteen species of carnivores, ranging from tiny weasels and badgers to wolverine and cougar, thrive here, in one of the most diverse carnivore populations on the continent. Without the Flathead, many surrounding valleys would no longer have a source of carnivores and other wildlife to replace those lost to trapping, hunting and natural mortality. Yet despite nearly a century of advocacy, the southeast corner of B.C. is noticeably free of what conservationists call “green blobs” – nature sanctuaries that serve as breeding grounds for neighbouring wildlife populations. To rectify the situation, a coalition of grassroots, national and international conservation interests is working overtime to focus B.C.’s political eye on this neglected corner of the province.

“Core protected areas are a key concept in conservation,” notes Harvey Locke, the visionary behind the Yellowstone-to-Yukon Conservation Initiative (Y2Y) and advisor for the Canadian Parks and Wilderness Society (CPAWS), a national conservation group that has helped protect more than 400,000 square kilometres of Canadian wilderness. “To secure a future for wide-ranging species such as grizzlies and lynx, which are both protected by the U.S. Endangered Species Act, large, core sanctuaries with no hunting or trapping are critical – and biologists have identified the Flathead as perhaps the single most important basin for carnivores in the Rocky Mountains.”

"Provincial parks are not truly protected. And even if they were, they don’t have the staff to police them. Hunting, snowmobiling and even heli-skiing are allowed in some, and B.C. Parks has only one staff member for every eight parks. How can you call that 'protected.' "

Not surprisingly, uncertainty over the Flathead’s future has sparked ongoing debate among the East Kootenays’ 56,000 residents. National Park proponents cite underfunding and poor management in provincial parks as the rationale for a national park. “Provincial parks are not truly protected,” explains John Bergenske, executive director of the grassroots East Kootenay conservation group Wildsight. “And even if they were, they don’t have the staff to police them. Hunting, snowmobiling and even heli-skiing are allowed in some provincial parks, and B.C. Parks has only one staff member for every eight parks. How can you call that ‘protected’?”

Parks Canada, for its part, is interested in stepping in. In 2002, it identified the Flathead as “an area of interest” for expansion of Waterton National Park – a proposal that initially garnered huge local interest. The city council of Fernie, the local Regional District of East Kootenay and the Ktunaxa First Nation (in whose traditional territory the Flathead is found) subsequently called for a park feasibility study. But for local hunting groups and ORV users, the word “park” can be a four-letter word.

National Park Designation: Those Opposed 

Sparwood, B.C.’s Kent Petovello, president of the East Kootenay Wildlife Association, draws on 30 years of outdoor experience in the Flathead when he says, “A national park is something most hunters would never consider. Why?  Most locals call Banff and Jasper ‘tourist pits.’ It goes beyond common sense to promote ski hills, golf and condominiums in a place like the Flathead. Some hunters might accept a Class A Provincial Park or wilderness area with legislated designations, but nobody wants a national park.”

Fernie’s Mike Sosnowski, owner-operator of a local snowmobile tour company, is similarly opposed. “Local input into the management of the Flathead is the answer to maintaining a healthy valley,” he insists. “A park would exclude a majority of the current users of that land base. It’s already managed by provincial and federal laws and standards that have worked very well so far. Leave it be.”

Economic Benefits of National Park Designation

“But the problem with ‘leaving it be,’” says Wildsight’s John Bergenske, “is that the current land use regime leaves the valley open for mining. We have an open-pit coal mine proposed for the headwaters of the Flathead right now, with more to come. This special place needs a special plan that includes a sanctuary like a national park in part of the valley and a ban on mining in the rest of it.”

“Such a plan would also be good for the B.C. economy,” says Harvey Locke. “We live in a world where the most rapidly disappearing commodity is wilderness. Protected areas are now economic drivers and diversifiers. And this is especially true for regions like the Flathead, which has one of the least diverse economies in B.C. – one susceptible to the booms and busts of highly unpredictable resource extraction markets.” He notes that towns such as Invermere, Canmore and Kalispel have booming economies simply because they are close to Kootenay, Banff and Glacier national parks. “People like living, and raising their families, near permanently protected nature. Such towns benefit not only from increased tourism, but from increased numbers and a diversity of residents.”

When the number of jobs that would be potentially lost was balanced against potential new Parks Canada jobs and the predicted influx of new families, the net annual benefit for the region was estimated at an impressive $1.44 million, with 23 additional full-time jobs generated.

To test this theory, Bergenske and Locke hired an independent economist in 2005 to evaluate the economic impact of a national park designation for the Flathead. When the number of jobs that would be potentially lost was balanced against potential new Parks Canada jobs and the predicted influx of new families, the net annual benefit for the region was estimated at an impressive $1.44 million, with 23 additional full-time jobs generated.

Currently, the East Kootenays boast five immense open-pit coal mines that collectively produce 25 per cent of the world’s “shipped” steelmaking coal. Hunters, conservation interests and even many local miners agree that another mine is not what the region needs. They may disagree on the proposed park expansion, but they see eye to eye on Cline Mining Corporation’s proposal to haul two million tonnes of coal annually from the Flathead’s headwaters down 40 km of forestry road to a rail siding on the Elk River. When Cline officials held public open houses this January in Elko, Fernie and Sparwood, the sentiment at the packed venues was clear: No, thanks. Local opinion was equally adamant in the more than 60,000 emails and faxes that subsequently crashed the email server of the governor of Montana and flooded B.C.’s Office of the Premier.

Overwhelming negative response such as this does not bode well for Cline Mining or for any future proposed mines in the Flathead. And if the public remains galvanized around keeping the Flathead wild, the future may well turn out bright for B.C.’s most endangered watershed. For conservationists such as John Bergenske and Harvey Locke, this would mean an expanded Waterton-Glacier International Peace Park. For Kent Petovello and other hunters it would mean a Flathead free of open-pit mines but with status-quo management of hunting and off-road-vehicle access. For its part, Parks Canada needs only the approval of the provincial government to proceed with a feasibility study for a national park (the province has so far declined to respond to calls to protect the Flathead).

Meanwhile, after more than a quarter century spent working and living in the Flathead Valley, Bruce McLellan is watching change edge slowly but surely into the valley where he has raised his family. “I’m not sure what the future holds for the Flathead. I’m only sure there have been changes, in human presence, off-road vehicle use, hunting pressures – all of which is not great for grizzlies,” he observes. “But I want to see the Flathead stay the same as it was 10 years ago, just like everybody else. And the only way to keep what still exists there today is to provide some measure of protection for tomorrow.”

Dave Quinn is a Kimberley, B.C.-based wildlife biologist, wilderness guide and author whose work takes him from the Kootenays to remote regions of the Arctic and Patagonia.

>>For more information on the transboarder Flathead Valley and the struggle to keep it wild: flatheadwild.ca; peaceparkplus.net

>>Related reading: B.C.’s Latest RAVE Focuses on the Flathead; Northern B.C.: The Last Wild River

Over the past few years, B.C.’s Flathead valley has slowly but surely risen to the top of the controversial list of “Canada’s Most Threatened Valleys” (Kimberley photographer Patrice Halley and I covered the Flathead for the summer 2007 issue of Westworld). The Flathead is home to the highest diversity of carnivores in North America, some of the purest water on the planet, the highest density of grizzlies in inland North America and the most diverse mixture of plant communities in the Rocky Mountains.

The Flathead is home to the highest diversity of carnivores in North America, some of the purest water on the planet, the highest density of grizzlies in inland North America and the most diverse mixture of plant communities in the Rocky Mountains.

All this seems at odds with open-pit coal mining, coal bed methane development and gold-mine proposals in B.C.’s portion of the Flathead – some places are just too special for the heavy hand of heavy industry. Which is why for 10 days this July, photographers and filmmakers with the International League of Conservation Photographers (ILCP) conducted a Rapid Assessment Visual Expedition (RAVE) into the Flathead Valley to document its landscape and wildlife, and to help distill a vision of hope for a solution to protect it. This proposal includes National Park status for a third of the valley and a wildlife management plan for the entire region.

With 60 “fellows,” including the likes of Wade Davis, Art Wolfe, Frans Lanting and Flip Nicklin, the ILCP represents some of the most accomplished, well-recognized names in photography. And when these pros turn their lenses to an issue, that issue is certain to garner a lot of attention – both for the insightful and poignant images ILCP photographers capture but also for the compelling stories their photos reveal.

The gala opening of the ILCP Flathead RAVE photography exhibit was held New Year’s Eve at the Fernie Arts Station, with the exhibit moving on to Cranbrook on February 4^th at the Key City Theatre, then to Kimberley on February 25^th at Centre 64. The marquee evening in Cranbrook will feature presentations by local photographer and mountaineer Pat Morrow, ILCP photographer Garth Lenz, and Spirit Bear phenom Simon Jackson. These local showings will be followed by RAVE exhibitions at galleries both in the region and abroad, showcasing one of B.C.’s critically threatened landscapes to as large an audience as possible.

WHAT DO YOU THINK?

Since 1911,when Waterton Park’s first superintendent John ‘Kootenai’ Brown called for it’s protection, conservationists have working to gain protection for southeastern British Columbia’s Flathead Valley. Following Parks Canada’s identification of the Flathead as an area of interest for a new park, Flathead National Park has been inching its way closer to reality. Do you think that National Park status is a good solution to this century-old debate, or perhaps you’d prefer to see a Provincial Park, a simple Wildlife Management Area, or no protection at all?  Tweet me at @KootenayDave to let me know what you think!

Related reading: Northern B.C.: The Last Wild River; Flathead on the Mind

Also, visit your local MEC store to check out the in-store display highlighting the Flathead Valley and the need to protect it.

Photos: Garth Lenz

Although my Kootenay backyard, to which I am forever and irrevocably bonded, features some of the most diverse wildlife habitats in southern Canada, a staggering network of industrial roads and hydroelectric developments has irreparably dulled the sharp edge of wilderness here.  An estimated 50 to 60,000 kilometres of forestry and mine roads spread like veins across the Kootenay high country, and both of our major rivers – the Columbia and Kootenay, have been dammed. The last salmon runs reached the upper Columbia River in the early 1940s, their way blocked forever by Washington’s Grand Coulee dam. Yet as a wilderness lover I am drawn to areas without these impacts – places where entire drainages, hundreds of kilometres long, are still unroaded, and where rivers still flow freely.

Northern British Columbia is one of those places.

NORTHERN B.C. "As a wilderness lover I am drawn to areas without these impacts – places where entire drainages, hundreds of kilometres long, are still unroaded, and where rivers still flow freely." Photo courtesy Brian Huntingon/brianhuntington.com

A 2007 canoe trip on northern B.C.’s Stikine River, one of three waterways that rise from the Spatsizi Plateau to make their way to the Pacific Ocean, hooked me on the area. The Stikine, along with the Nass and Skeena rivers, are true ecosystem arteries – conduits for the timeless flow of nutrients to the oceans and the return of critical minerals and proteins in the countless bodies of salmon who return to these rivers and their tributaries to complete their life cycles.

I thought a 10-day canoe trip on a wild northern river was pretty hard-core. That is, until I heard of Ali Howard’s truly epic 28-day, 610-km swim of the Stikine’s big-sister-river, the Skeena. Yes, that’s right, swim.

Howard immersed herself in the frigid Skeena to raise awareness of the threats of Shell’s proposed coal-bed methane drilling in the Sacred Headwaters and Enbridge’s proposed tar- sands oil pipeline (Westworld magazine features the Stikine and CBM threats to the Sacred Headwaters in its Winter 2009 issue “Landmarks: The Last Wild River”). Ali Howard summed up a month of cold-water immersion, punishing rapids, inspiring community support, and above all, the story of the Skeena, in Vancouver on Thursday December 3 at UBC Robson Square.

STIKINE RIVER, B.C. Ali Howard immersed herself in the frigid Skeena to raise awareness of the threats of Shell’s proposed coal-bed methane drilling in the Sacred Headwaters and Enbridge’s proposed tar sands oil pipeline. Photo courtesy Brian Huntington/brianhuntington.com

With the efforts of people like Ali, and support from people like you, hopefully the Skeena will never join the much-diminished Columbia River on the shameful list of watersheds to which salmon no longer return.

Do you have an update on the Wade Davis and David Suziki fight to save B.C.’s “Sacred Headwaters”? Let us know!

Lead photo courtesy Brian Huntington/brianhuntington.com

Artists strive to capture the essence of a subject – to essentially freeze it in time to allow the rest of our less intuitive brains time to render the fat from the meat, to see it’s true spirit.

Some of us work with words.  We try to arrange this jumble of symbols you see before you in such a way as to kindle some inner fire if inspiration and understanding.

Award-winning Nelson photographer Kari Medig seeks unique perspectives that tell his subject's stories in compelling ways. Kari's work will be featured at KMC's Backyard Booty on December 11th.

Others break our fast-paced world into frozen, individual images. Photographers offer us our world one frame at a time, allowing us to explore the full range of human emotion, the power of landscape, the meaning of shape, tone and colour.

Painters and sculptors are limited only by the human imagination – their own and that of their audience. Their offerings are as much a glimpse into their own souls as a lens through which to view our surroundings.

For the last five years Nelson’s Mitchell Scott and Peter Moynes have bound a range of place-based art into the pages of a single publication, Kootenay Mountain Culture magazine (KMC). And for the past five years, KMC’s high-quality presentation, resonant content, and creative depth have had locals clamouring for the next edition of this biannual months before publication.

In addition to celebrating the local flavours in print,This years event launches on December 11 at Nelson’s Capitol Theatre. Showtime 7 p.m.

Courtesy Jeremy Down

Whether you’re an ingredient in the unique spice that is Kootenay Mountain Culture, or just a voyeur wanting a better peek at what’s on the other side of the powder curtain, Backyard Booty in Nelson is the place to be this month.

Links:

karimedigphoto.com
www.jeremydown.com
Mitchell Scott: adventurestorytelling.ca

Lead photo courtesy Jeremy Down

by Dave Quinn

In 1879, legendary American naturalist and wilderness advocate John Muir paddled B.C.’s lower Stikine River, which from its headwaters on the Spatsizi Plateau carves a 250-km path through the Coast Mountains between Telegraph Creek, B.C., and Wrangell, Alaska — a remote waterway described by Muir as a “Yosemite 100 miles long.”

Some 130 years later, the Stikine’s lower half has survived the salmon wars, plans to dam its “Grand Canyon” and a proposed open-pit gold mine in a major tributary. But the threat of coal-bed methane (CBM) development in its headwaters — which requires a particularly destructive fossil-fuel extraction technique — still looms. The good news: local First Nations and conservationists such as David Suzuki and Wade Davis have united to “save the sacred headwaters” of the Stikine, Nass and Skeena, three of the province’s most important salmon-producing rivers. The collapse of B.C.’s southern salmon stocks in the summer of 2009, resulting in closures to commercial and First Nations fishing on the Fraser and dramatic decreases in grizzly populations on the south coast, only reinforces the urgency of their struggle.

>>Related reading: 2010 update on the Stikine + excerpt from Gary Fiegehen’s photography book Stikine: The Great River; Northern B.C.: Swim the Skeena;

B.C.’s Latest RAVE Focuses on the Flathead ; Flathead on the Mind

>>Tame the Wild Facts? Reader Comments:

On the whole, Westworld magazine has been a very interesting and informative read over the years. Occasionally though, an article appears that really “gets my goat” – usually when a story’s focus leads readers to believe something that is more sensational than factual, such as winter 2009’s Landmarks column (“The Last Wild River” by Dave Quinn).

It’s a beautiful river and deserves protection. However, while I am uncertain what is meant by “wild,” I’m sure the Stikine is not the last wild river – in B.C., Canada, the U.S. or the world. Also, the last sentence has two errors. First, there was a much lower return in the sockeye runs than anticipated, but the other species have returned in good and, in some cases, record numbers on the south coast. In fact, the biggest single effect on these returns is ocean survival, something we have little control over. Second, the coast’s grizzly populations are dependent on returning salmon, but why does their range seem to be expanding on the south coast? Grizzlies are swimming from the mainland to Vancouver Island because there’s not enough territory for them.

–Laurence Brown, via email

The collapse to which Dave Quinn is referring involves sockeye salmon, specifically the Chilko River run. There are five species of salmon – six if you count steelhead, which are now included in the same genus – and the numerous runs of these species in literally thousands of streams in the province did not all “collapse” this summer. (All the “southern” runs did not collapse, either.)

–Geoff Chislett, via email

Writer’s Note: For years, news reports have noted declining and less predictable salmon returns along the southern west coast. According to the CBC, for example: “On the U.S. west coast many salmon runs have completely collapsed; in B.C. the situation is only slightly better. But in the north Pacific . . . many salmon runs are at or near all-time highs.” In fact, the 2009 sockeye collapse on the Fraser (and the Chilko, according to Mr. Chislett) led to a judicial inquiry. Some returns of other species were larger than expected, as Mr. Brown correctly asserts, but the situation is frighteningly similar to the prelude to the collapse of the east coast cod fishery.

Re: B.C.’s grizzlies – these bears swim from the mainland in a natural process called “dispersal.” They rarely, if ever, survive the first humans they encounter after “island hopping” to Vancouver Island.

>>Do you have an update on the fight to save the Stikine, Nass and Skeena? Let us know!

Photo courtesy Dave Quinn.

courtesy Whitewater Ski Resort

Nelson’s Whitewater Ski Resort (WH2O) is one of the last of a dying breed. Purely and simply, WH2O is a ski hill. Period. No on-hill accommodation facelifts. No lifestyle-oriented real estate tummy tucks. No Rundle-rock and timber frame implants. Just one valley, two lifts and enough snow to choke a mountain caribou – 140 cm at the time of writing. Not bad for November 23.

At the other of the rugged Selkirk Mountains and the ski resort spectrum lies an altogether different beast, the much-touted Revelstoke Mountain Resort (RMR). Rescued from receivership last year, the new development  boasts 1,700-plus metres’ elevation – the highest lift-serviced vertical in North America – and, at full capacity, zips skiers all over the mountain on 20 different lifts while allotting skiers their choice of 5,000 beds to sleep off all that vertical. If that’s not enough, with its cat skiing and heli-ski partners, RMR also offers 200,000-plus hectares of terrain to choose from. Different slopes for different wallets.

The only things these two vastly different resorts share are the sick skiing of the Selkirk Mountains and an opening date: Saturday, November 28. These are the first Kootenay hills to fire up the lifts this season.

So take your pick: bigger-better-higher-faster at the ‘Stoke, or the very chill, very real aura of Nelson’s Whitewater (don’t forget its Fresh Tracks Café – for some of the best lodge food on the planet). Winter is here. See you on the boards this weekend – bring your snorkel!

Lead image courtesy Whitewater Ski Resort

In hindsight, a sudden, low “whumph” should have been my first warning that I was about to be buried in an avalanche. Yet all I really remember is arcing my skis toward safe terrain in the trees – as, instead of slowing, I, and the entire snowslope around me accelerated – over the lip toward the steep terrain and trees below.

No way . . . 

Yep. Avalanche.

Get to the trees on the right. No – moving too fast! Trees at this speed mean a broken femur or worse. Avoid the trees!  Get left – away from the trees! Dig in! Slow down!

Snap! One ski releases. Head over heels. Again, and again.

Boot heels, fingers, elbows scrabbling into hard surface below. Got to slow down! Light. Dark. Mouth full of snow. Gasp . . . breath of air.

Fight! Dig in! I am not going to die in an avalanche.

Finally slowing.

Sudden stop.

Silence.

I laugh. Scream. Bawl. All that adrenaline has to go somewhere. I’m OK –minus a ski, poles, goggles and hat, but OK.

After nearly 20 years of skiing, including more than a decade teaching avalanche awareness courses, the mountains sent me a warning, a shot over the bow. But I was lucky – I skied away from it.

But last year, 26 people in Canada alone were not so lucky, including an unprecedented 19 snowmobilers who lost their lives to avalanches.

But the good news –

This weekend in Fernie, anyone can learn how to safely experience the backcountry – on skis, snowshoe or a sled – at the Canadian Avalanche Centre and Columbia Brewery’s (of Kokanee Beer fame) annual public Backcountry Avalanche Workshop. 

• When: Saturday, November 21
• Where: The Arts Station, downtown Fernie
• Coordinates: 9 a.m. to 5 p.m.
• Cost: $20 registration fee, payable at the doo
• For more info on this and other backcountry avalanche awareness aorkshops throughout the province:  http://www.avalanche.ca/cac/events/backcountry-avalanche-workshops

I’ll see you there, in the mountains – and, most important, at the bar for a Kokanee at the end of another safe backcountry day.

Photos: Dave Quinn

For the past 11 Remembrance Days, retired pilot and vintage aircraft restorer Neil Davidson has been paying homage to Canada’s war veterans in his own way. On the 11th day of the 11th month, at precisely 11 a.m., Neil buzzes the crowd at Kimberley’s cenotaph in his completely refurbished 1940 Tiger Moth biplane.

Growing up in the lap of the Purcell and Rocky mountains in Cranbrook and in the company of exceptional people like Neil, I always had some sense that this part of the world was somehow unique and special. Over the years this vague idea has cemented into a very real awareness that the essence of the Kootenay region runs deeper than our world-class golf and ski resorts, and our postcard-worthy vistas.

___________________________________________________________
The Andean towers and icecaps of Patagonia arguably match
the Kootenays’ for sheer visual inspiration, but Patagonia’s native
wildlife was long ago displaced by the introduction of non-
native fish in its streams and by sheep and cattle across its landscape
___________________________________________________________________

I have yet to find a region as rich with the seemingly incongruous values of intact wilderness and creature comforts, wealth and freedom, frontierism and safety. The jungles of Colombia emanate an unrivalled sense of vibrancy and mystique, but you sure as heck don’t want to be caught on a backroad at night in the country with the highest number of kidnappings per capita in the world. The Andean towers and icecaps of Patagonia arguably match the Kootenays’ for sheer visual inspiration, but Patagonia’s native wildlife was long ago displaced by the introduction of non-native fish in its streams and by sheep and cattle across its landscape. The Himalayas boast some of the most jaw-dropping mountainscapes on the planet, along with an inspiring history and culture, but nearly every square inch of that vast region has been modified in some way by humanity, and desertification and human health issues are rampant.

The Kootenays truly have it all: the freedom to explore, express and inspire as you will, and as much or as little adventure as one cares to search out, all with a glass of wine and a warm bed at the end of the day.

Wherever you are, this week in particular gives us cause to pause and thank those who worked hard and sacrificed all this, even their lives when needed, to allow us to continue to enjoy it. If you happen to be near Kimberley this Wednesday morning at 11 o’clock, look up and enjoy a piece of history floating through pure mountain air, over some of the wildest landscape in the world, and be thankful.

Note: Dave Quinn will be posting weekly from the Kootenays starting the week of November 11, 2009

For more aviation tales: Skydiving Newbie

Lead photo courtesy Brian Clarkson (cranbrookphoto.com)