The Review Edition

Includes the Globe and Mail review by Mark Hume on the Dust jacket



All proceeds from this book are donated to Sierra Club BC.



In the summer of 2007, having travelled in both Antarctica and the high Arctic, I wrote of the privilege of being immersed in some of the world’s last pristine ecosystems. I also shared my photographs in the hope that the wonder and the fragility of these environments might cause others to be caught up in my appreciation for the natural world’s beauty and intrinsic core value. Reflecting upon my polar adventures, I concluded that the challenge for the future is for humankind to recognize that, as integral constituents of the earth's ecosystem, we must live within its natural capacity. It is a challenge for our generation to champion and for our children to embrace.



Today, after many expeditions to the Great Bear Rainforest and Haida Gwaii on Canada’s Pacific rim, my conviction has grown. For along the coast, among the fjords and islands, there is an incredible beauty and natural productivity that reflects the very origins of the planet. But the impact and consequences of our lifestyle upon primordial intact ecosystems are also there in stark relief. Evidence of the onslaught of efficient industrialized resource extraction and commerce is ever present: logging, fishing, open-net aquaculture, supertanker transportation, oil and gas exploration, even trophy hunting of grizzly bears…. Here one can observe the pace at which our consumer lives are stripping the great geological riches which have taken millennia to build. And here we can see with razor sharp clarity that people must live within the means provided by our daily solar income if we and these last few pristine places are to endure.



This book is a collection of photographs from the region, interspersed with accounts of experiences that have helped shape my thoughts. They are thoughts and experiences that have catalyzed my conversion from part-time adventurer to active advocate for this wondrous coast where the great green forests meet the edge of the world.