News
Vancouver filmmaker traces proposed pipeline path by bike, foot
Aug 1, 2010, Edmonton Journal (Read article on originating site site)
EDMONTON — Vancouver filmmaker Frank Wolf biked out of Fort McMurray 22 days ago to trace the proposed path of Enbridge’s Northern Gateway Pipeline project.
Ten flat tires and a few golf ball-sized blisters later, Wolf has finished traversing Alberta’s industrial heartland, and now ventures into British Columbia’s grizzly country.
“We’re definitely getting out of the land of man and into the land of animals,” he said.
Wolf is completing the journey as part of a documentary film project, interviewing locals along the way to gain a ground-level perspective on the pipeline’s potential impact.
Along with friend Todd McGowan, he’s covered close to 1,100 kilometres, biking throughout the barren moonscape of northern tailing ponds and oilsands, down through Fort Saskatchewan, and is now resting briefly in Tumbler Ridge, B.C., after walking nearly 180 kilometres from Grande Prairie.
The proposed pipeline will stretch 1,172 kilometres from Bruderheim, just north of Edmonton, to the B.C. coast at Kitimat.
First Nation’s groups and environmental activists are vociferously opposed to the project, while oil company executives tout vast economic gains. Wolf said his project aims to get beyond canned media messages and learn what regular Canadians think of the pipeline.
He’s spoken with farmers, fishermen, cab drivers, welders and a host of others living in the shadows of oil derricks, chronicling the industry’s stranglehold.
“It has absolute control of the province,” he said. “If they discover oil on your land, they can basically take it.”
He said at one family farm that had a giant rig on their land. The mother, who had lived there 40 years, couldn’t stand the squeaking noise the machinery made, and moved into a makeshift campsite down the road to escape the noise.
People living along the pipelines often receive little in the way of compensation, he said. Though the construction project provides jobs, the work dries up after the pipe has been laid and only the end points continue to experience economic benefits.
There’s also growing concern over environmental hazards after an Enbridge pipeline leaked over three million litres of oil into Michigan waterways.
“I went fishing yesterday with a local man in Stony Lake,” Wolf said. “He and his family were saying, ‘Imagine if that happened here.’ It would go into that lake and into the rivers it connects to and it would destroy the reason they live up there. You can see the way it can affect all of the wilderness.”
Wolf still has 700 kilometres of walking before he reaches the Pacific coast at Kitimat, and is interested to see how British Columbian perspectives differ from Albertans.
Read more: http://www.vancouversun.com/news/Vancouver+filmmaker+traces+proposed+pipeline+path+bike+foot/3350013/story.html#ixzz0wF2PMjNX