ISLAND LENS WRITER FOCUSES ON FILM: "SUCH GREAT HEIGHTS"

Richard Boyce filming an aerial garden growing 60 meters high up in the canopy of an ancient Sitka Spruce.

Over the past 5 years I have made a concerted effort to shed some light onto the nature around us with a view that we are here because of the environment that provides humanity with everything we need to live. My belief remains that we must protect the environment around us if we hope to continue to prosper as a species. I have had the opportunity to share my views about a wide variety of subjects with loyal readers and browsers alike.
This is the 125th article of my column ‘Island Lens’ which was first published by the PQNews on February 20, 2004. Today marks the final article for Island Lens, so that I can turn my full attention to the final stages of a film, which I have been producing for the past 3 years entitled; “Such Great Heights.” This feature length documentary film focuses on the unique canopy of the ancient rainforest that grows on the west coast of Vancouver Island.
It has been my lifelong dream to explore airborne gardens, high above the forest floor with their abundance of life that is as diverse as it is lush. During the production of this film I have been able to explore the canopy first-hand and gather stories from people who have spent years researching this incredibly unique environment. First Nations’ Elders have also shared their traditional knowledge with me and my camera.

Aerial gardens are unique ecosystems which have evolved over hundreds of years, as debris is caught in the nooks and crannies of massive trees where it composts over time. Eventually soil deposits develop which provide a rich base for windblown seeds, which flourish in the light. These aerial gardens provide habitat for unique insects, as discovered by a team of Entomologists from the University of Victoria who have recorded more than 125 insects that had never before been identified. Scientists in the early 1990s discovered that the rare and endangered Marbled Murrelet nests exclusively on aerial gardens making it the only known seabird in the world to nest in trees.

With a small crew of climbers, including a professional arborist, I have developed ways to film high up in the canopy, climbing ropes rather than the trees to limit the damage we do to the environment we are documenting. As a team we have created rope systems that allow us to move vertically and horizontally through the canopy of giant Sitka Spruce, Western Red Cedar, and Douglas fir trees.

The temperate rainforests found in the low valley bottoms on the west coast of Vancouver Island have a biomass greater than anywhere on earth, meaning that the density of living organisms per square meter surpasses even that of the famous Amazon rainforest. Science has determined that rainforests are extremely important to the life cycles and functions of this planet. Trees filter air by taking carbon, nitrogen, phosphates, and other airborne chemicals in the atmosphere and fixing them into the soil where they provide nutrients, in turn producing vast amounts of oxygen. Forests are the lungs of our planet. Trees redistribute water, functioning as huge sponges to retain water and pumping vast quantities of water back into the atmosphere. Rainforests greatly effect weather patterns.

Ironically, in order for me to film in the pristine rainforest I have to drive to the most remote regions of Vancouver Island through seemingly endless clear-cuts, tree farms, and second growth mono-culture forests. Less than 2% of the original old growth forest remains in low valley bottoms on Vancouver Island. 85 of the original 91 watersheds have been completely devastated by logging over the past 150 years when the first steam sawmill was brought from England to Port Alberni. Today I estimate that there are three times as many logging roads, where the general public seldom ventures, as paved roads on Vancouver Island.

I am currently editing my film “Such Great Heights” with the goal of providing everyone with an opportunity to explore the canopy of the rainforest before it is completely destroyed. You can catch a glimpse by viewing a short video posted at my website: www.islandboundmedia.ca

Richard Boyce in the canopy overlooking logging operations on publicly owned land in the Upper East Creek, Valley, Vancouver Island, BC, Canada.

CLAM GARDENS OPEN DEEP WOUND

Seaweed drying where many generations have spread out this important harvest.

The boat thrashed through the turbulent waters caused by gusts of wind combined with the rushing of the tides through a narrow channel between rocky islands. The tide reached a low of zero at 7am exposing a rocky coastline covered in a wide variety of seaweed well below the tide line that cuts a straight line along the overhanging forest.

The boat is filled to the brim with academics eager to learn about the past from two of the only people with living memory of how their people harvested seaweed and clams along this coast. The passengers included an Archeologist, an Ethno-Botanist, and a Marine Biologist specializing in seaweed as well as graduate students pursuing degrees in Entho-Botany, Environmental studies, and Linguistics who are documenting the journey for their research.

Known traditionally as Qwaxsistalla, the Clan Chief of Kawadillikala (wolf) Clan of Kingcome Inlet, Adam Dick leads us on a tour of his traditional Lok'key'wey. This Clam Garden was built thousands of years ago by his ancestors and was maintained through the centuries by his people. They constructed dikes made of stone to bridge the openings between large rock outcroppings between islands. Over many years these structures expanded the beaches, which supported clams and other marine life. The development of these fertile gardens, which were tended every spring and winter during the seaweed and clam harvest season, increased the numbers of clams many times over.

I try to imagine what it would have been like for a small child to be piled into a dug out canoe with his grandparents, paddling through the maze of islands with most of their belongings. Heading to a winter camp, where they could gather clams and hide from the authorities, in order to escape the torments of the residential schools. As a result of their efforts the knowledge passed down through countless generations, by a people who understood how to survive and flourish on this unforgiving coast, exists today.

With first contact between Europeans and First Nations peoples came diseases such as Small Pocks, Measles, and Tuberculosis, which wiped out the majority of people living on the coast of what is now British Columbia. Those who survived were forced to live on government controlled reserves and they were no longer allowed to move freely to harvest their traditional foods which were located in different places depending upon the season. Their children where forcibly taken to residential schools where they were forbidden to speak their languages. Cultural traditions such as the Potlatch, where knowledge was passed between the generations, were outlawed and punishable with extreme hardships.

On the return trip we stop at a tiny island to pick-up a team of graduate students, who have been harvesting seaweed according to traditional methods. One of them spread out squares of the thin green stands on a smooth rock face and comments that this is the perfect place for drying the seaweed with its southern exposure. I wonder how many people have used this same spot for the same purpose over the past millennia. When we return to the boat Qwaxsistalla tells us that he was reminded of his grandmother who spread seaweed in the exact same spot and remembers that the large tree towering over the rock was just a sapling when he last gathered seaweed with his grandparents.

Once the seaweed is dried and stored in a bent cedar box, layered between cedar boughs and pressed under a stone, dense bricks of rich black are ready to store or eat. It has a smell akin to caramel and the texture is similar to popcorn, except it melts in your mouth as it returns to its original state of thin smooth seaweed with a salty spice that is very unique. It’s delicious.

It turns out that the skipper of the boat is doing her postgraduate studies by researching SPLICE, a chemical used in fish farms to kill sea lice, which kill small salmon fry. Premier Gordon Campbell recently increased the number of fish farms and their capacity in the Broughton Archipelago although the effects upon wild salmon stocks have been shown to be devastating. Currently the BC government allows the use of this chemical agent, despite the fact that it has been banned by several countries including the USA because of its ill effects on the marine environment surrounding Salmon Farms.