PK's reblog

Rick can rant… I have to back this one

Wed, 22 Feb 2012 13:17:55 -0800

Rick can rant… I have to back this one

mattyrichard: “Kye won the Revy comp WooHooo!!!”

Sun, 19 Feb 2012 17:21:28 -0800

mattyrichard: “Kye won the Revy comp WooHooo!!!”

Artic Shock & Awe

Sun, 19 Feb 2012 17:13:00 -0800

Artic Shock & Awe

The Claw keeping it Rad

Wed, 15 Feb 2012 16:38:00 -0800

The Claw keeping it Rad

Super Natural

Wed, 08 Feb 2012 13:47:00 -0800

Super Natural

My fav from Whistler last week markgribbon.com

Tue, 17 Jan 2012 14:56:00 -0800

My fav from Whistler last week

markgribbon.com

Here’s the best slideshow from Whistler last...

Tue, 17 Jan 2012 11:27:00 -0800

Here’s the best slideshow from Whistler last week

robinoneillphotography.com

Kye turned 21 and skied this line on Mt. Mackenzie to win the...

Sun, 15 Jan 2012 09:29:00 -0800

Kye turned 21 and skied this line on Mt. Mackenzie to win the Revelstoke stop of the Freeski tour. The kid is now the man.

Shit Skiers Say

Wed, 11 Jan 2012 17:28:15 -0800

Shit Skiers Say

David Suzuki breaks it down

Wed, 11 Jan 2012 17:15:37 -0800

Northern Gateway is about profits versus environment

January 11, 2012 | from http://www.davidsuzuki.org/

When we build infrastructure such as pipelines to support the fossil fuel industry, we increase the incentive to use fossil fuels for a longer time and decrease the incentives to invest in cleaner energy. (Credit: rblood via Flickr)

By David Suzuki with contributions from David Suzuki Foundation Editorial and Communications Specialist Ian Hanington

The battle lines are drawn, and Northern B.C.’s pristine wilderness is the latest front. With hearings underway into the proposed $5.5-billion, dual 1,172-kilometre Enbridge Northern Gateway pipeline project to transport bitumen from the Alberta tar sands to Kitimat and imported condensate to dilute it from the coast back to Alberta, the fossil fuel industry and its supporters have stepped up the rhetoric. Environmentalists and people in towns, rural areas, and First Nations communities in B.C. have lined up in opposition.

It’s not just about potential damage from an oil spill along the pipeline route or from a supertanker plying the precarious fiords and waterways along our northern coast — as critical as those concerns are. The larger issues are about our continued reliance on polluting fossil fuels and the economic impact of rapidly exploiting and selling our resources and resource industries.

It’s about Canada’s national interest. With lax royalty structures and massive subsidies to the fossil fuel industry, not to mention foreign ownership of tar sands operations and lobbying by foreign companies, Canadians are not enjoying the real benefits of our oil industry. In fact, increasing reliance on the tar sands is hurting other sectors of the economy, manufacturing in particular.

Thanks to the government’s support for the fossil fuel industry, ours is a petro dollar that rises and falls with the price of oil. The high price of oil has increased our dollar’s value, and that has hurt the more labour-intensive manufacturing sector, which relies on exports. Not only have hundreds of thousands of manufacturing jobs been lost over the past few years, Canada has also been missing out on opportunities to join the boom in production of renewable-energy technology.

And when we build infrastructure such as pipelines to support the fossil fuel industry, we increase the incentive to use fossil fuels for a longer time and decrease the incentives to invest in cleaner energy.

Industry adherents have come up with many arguments supporting the Northern Gateway project. Some have more holes than an oilfield.

Take the jobs argument. Even Enbridge admits that most would be in short-term construction work. Only about 35 to 40 long-term jobs would be created at the Kitimat marine terminal, with some additional jobs in pipeline maintenance. It hardly seems worth risking tens of thousands of jobs in tourism and the fishing industry, among others, for a few short-term and even fewer long-term positions.

Most economic benefits from increased tar sands production would go to the companies and their shareholders, including firms from the U.S., Korea, and China. In fact, state-owned PetroChina, which already operates in the tar sands, has just bought 100 per cent of the MacKay River project.

The “ethical oil” argument is so absurd as to be hardly worth mentioning, but it’s one the government has latched onto. Oil can’t be ethical or unethical. People, and by extension the companies they own and operate or the governments they represent, can behave in ethical or unethical ways, but a product can’t.

The Northern Gateway project, and much of the recent and pending tar sands expansion, will help companies owned by the government of China dig up the bitumen and send it there for refining and use. The ethical oil folks admit that China is a police state, so why do they support selling them our industry and resources? Canadian tar sands companies also do business in the countries tagged by the ethical oil folks as being unethical — often in partnership with state-owned companies.

The anti-American conspiracy theories are even more absurd. Saying that opposition to the Northern Gateway is a plot by U.S. funding agencies to protect America’s access to Canadian oil is just idiotic in light of the fact that many of the same groups and funders also oppose the Keystone XL pipeline project that would carry oil from the tar sands to Texas. It’s odd to see such anti-Americanism coming from conservatives who apparently support Communist China!

The only real argument for Northern Gateway is that it will increase profits for the oil industry, and hand over more of our resources and the associated profits and jobs to China. The arguments against it are so numerous we’ve barely touched them here.

little wave on the remote west coast

Tue, 10 Jan 2012 16:15:47 -0800

little wave on the remote west coast

“pure butter” “solid gold” “back to back to back”...

Tue, 03 Jan 2012 10:25:00 -0800

“pure butter” “solid gold” “back to back to back” ”ridiculous”

Congrats Kevin Rolland

little drive in the mountains…

Mon, 02 Jan 2012 11:03:03 -0800

little drive in the mountains…

All.I.Can.

Tue, 20 Dec 2011 09:53:00 -0800

toqueandcanoe.com

It was the JP Auclair Street Segment gone viral that got our attention.

The mind-blowing clip from All.I.Can. which was produced by Sherpas Cinema and won ”best feature length mountain film” at this year’s Banff Mountain Film and Book Festival.

This gritty urban ski segment features French Canadian freestyle skier JP Auclair as he flies through small town B.C. (Trail, Rossland and Nelson) – skidding across roads, riding rails, and jumping everything from cars to clotheslines to swing sets.

photo by david mossop

Edited to LCD Sound System’s hypnotic “Dance Yrself Clean” – the segment continues to strike at the hearts of die-hard skiers and snowboarders everywhere.

Curious about the people behind this incredible snow show, we tracked down Whistler-based co-director David Mossop and we even managed to hook up with JP Auclair who currently lives in Zurich, Switzerland.

Toque & Canoe: David, what launched your interest in filming extreme sports?

Mossop: “When I was a teenager I lived in Calgary and I fell in love with the mountains. My dad was a geologist. He loved the mountains and studied them his whole life.

We’re all buddies from high school at Sherpas Cinema. All.I.Can. is our second film. The first one was called The Fine Line – an avalanche education film made cool. Most of the ones that came before were pretty dorky.

We made The Fine Line because, in 1997, we lost four of our best friends in high school to an avalanche. I was supposed to go on that trip but couldn’t make it. The guys went hiking to find some snow on the back bowls of Fortress and they were all buried really close together. This experience changed the way we view life. We want to live every day to its fullest in the mountains. On one hand, it was a very sad event for us. But it’s crazy to see how much positivity came out of it. It almost feels as though these friends live on through us.

T & C: JP, you’ve been skiing professionally for 14 years now. What are you up to these days?

Auclair: As a professional athlete, I’m an independent worker. I am my own business – doing different freelance contracts for other companies like performing on my skis or movie editing or consulting for gear and product development. I live in Switzerland and will be living here for the next two winters.

T & C: Dave, tell us about the concept for All.I.Can. – which took you and co-director Eric Crosland around the world in search of snow. How did you make it happen?

Mossop: We had an idea for a three act film. “All” represents what is global. “I” is about the individual. “Can” is about bringing together those two scales. At one point, we were in Chile and the boys were on horseback decked out in ski boots heading up to ski into the crater of a volcano. We were told by the locals that no one had ever done this before. We were flying by the seat of our pants a lot of the time – especially when it came to funding. In the end, it felt like strange strings were being pulled from the heavens to make it happen.

T & C: When we watch your segment, JP, you make it look so easy. How challenging was it for you to pull off?

Auclair: The skiing is actually not very technical. The difficult part was to piece a whole sequence together that would allow the viewer to dream about a continuous run as well as feel a certain spontaneity. The days were pretty intense as we didn’t have the time or the resources we needed. We made up for that with extra work and carefully planned tasks.

T & C: JP, can you talk to us about the experience of this segment going viral?

Auclair: I’ve been making movies for well over ten years now. In the beginning, we didn’t have the internet as a media outlet. If I wanted to make a five minute video, the only place it belonged was on a VHS tape and only the skiing audience would see it. So I’m glad I got to experience how it feels to put your work in a place where anyone can have access to it and even interact with you. We’ve had lots of great interaction with all sorts of people since the seggy went live.

Filmmaker David Mossop with Canadian freestyle skiier JP Auclair / photo by eric crossland

T & C: Word has it, Dave is a perfectionist – which can make him a challenge to work with. Even he says he has a “savage” work ethic. Any thoughts on this JP?

Auclair: Working with Dave was amazing! Most of my friends tell me I’m a pain in the butt to work with because I’m too meticulous. I think it was a great collaboration for that exact reason. It felt like we were on the same page the whole time. Neither of us would get frustrated when the other would insist on re-shooting a sequence or re-editing a section.

T & C: Dave, can you talk to us about which filmmakers have influenced your style? All.I.Can. has provoked some serious accolades. One reviewer summarized it as “kick ass nature porn.”

Mossop: I’m a film studies guy. The JP segment, for example, speaks to the Russian filmmaker Andrei Tarkosvsky. His images are always permeated with water and have extremely long edits. We also pay hommage to Stanley Kubric, or more specifically, 2001: A Space Odyssey. The concept behind an edit we make is that as soon as an idea is born, that idea will be hashed out to its final form and everything that happens in between is insignificant. He has apes fighting over a water hole. One discovers a bone and beats away the competition. Then he cuts to a spacehip in 2001. In All.I.Can., it’s the lava which is designed to look like earth before life. Then, there’s the plant that starts growing and we cut to the madness of modern day society.

T & C: Can you tell us, Dave, about your goals as a filmmaker?

Mossop: I’m very interested in film as a means of communication. I’m interested in cinematic language as a unique tool that can bring the world together and transcend language barriers taking our consciousness to a higher level. All our films are theme driven. There’s a lot of meaning and symbolism embedded – detectable by viewers if they’re keen to observe them. I want to create films that are entertaining on the surface and keep people engaged. But I want to include another layer where I can address topics like the meaning of life, the human condition or the universe.

T & C: Why skiing, Dave? What is it about this sport that has captured your imagination?

Mossop: At the root of it all, it’s snow, water and mountains. Mountains don’t just represent beautiful places but they represent challenges. They inspire you. Skiing is really a lifestyle more than a sport. There’s the camaraderie with your friends. The sights and the sounds of the mountains. The struggles and epic journeys. All these little mini-adventures. As soon as you’ve had your first powder turn, you’re hooked. It’s all you want to find for the rest of your life.

Baffin Island = mission

Mon, 19 Dec 2011 11:24:19 -0800

Baffin Island = mission

oil vs bear

Tue, 06 Dec 2011 14:23:39 -0800

oil vs bear

Ho Chi Minh city

Tue, 06 Dec 2011 13:48:25 -0800

Ho Chi Minh city

like

Mon, 05 Dec 2011 19:36:26 -0800

little french lesson

Mon, 05 Dec 2011 10:46:05 -0800

little french lesson

only 1.5 mill

Thu, 01 Dec 2011 09:17:00 -0800

only 1.5 mill

PK's reblog

Rick can rant… I have to back this one

mattyrichard: “Kye won the Revy comp WooHooo!!!”

Artic Shock & Awe

The Claw keeping it Rad

Super Natural

My fav from Whistler last week markgribbon.com

Here’s the best slideshow from Whistler last...

Kye turned 21 and skied this line on Mt. Mackenzie to win the...

Shit Skiers Say

David Suzuki breaks it down

Northern Gateway is about profits versus environment

Subscribe to Science Matters

little wave on the remote west coast

“pure butter” “solid gold” “back to back to back”...

little drive in the mountains…

All.I.Can.

toqueandcanoe.com

Baffin Island = mission

oil vs bear

Ho Chi Minh city

like

little french lesson

only 1.5 mill