Photos: Canadian Rain Forest Edges Oil Pipeline Path

Swimming Upstream

Photograph courtesy Thomas P. Peschak, Save Our Seas/ILCP

Pink salmon migrate upriver to spawn in an unidentified stream in the Great Bear Rainforest.

The rivers in the Great Bear Rainforest (and, indeed in much of British Columbia) are fertile spots for Coho, Chinook, Sockeye, Pink, Chum, and Steelhead salmon. First Nations subsistence fishers, wildlife such as bears and wolves, and to some extent commercial fisheries depend on the abundance in these rivers.

Published October 7, 2010

Rocky Seal Respite

Photograph courtesy Daniel Beltra, ILCP

Seals sun themselves on the rocky coast of British Columbia. The Douglas Channel, the path from the Pacific to Kitimat, would take an oil tanker, escorted by tugboats, up to 18 hours, said Stafford Reid, an environmental consultant who previously worked for the British Columbia Ministry of Environment. Given the trip time and the quantity of oil coming through the new pipeline, "there'll be a tanker coming through that channel pretty much every day," Reid said. "That's a pretty intense use of a coastal channel."

Enbridge, which hopes to export its oil to energy-hungry countries in Asia, says the route is safe. It's "more safe in terms of depth and width than other ports tankers use around the world, and a lot wider and deeper than the port of Vancouver," Enbridge spokesman Alan Roth said.

Published October 7, 2010

A Different Oil

Photograph courtesy Ian McAllister, ILCP

Sea stars and kelp make a pretty picture off the coast of British Columbia that could see new oil tanker traffic if the pipeline plan moves forward.

Reid, the consultant, said that Enbridge was performing "various layers of due diligence . . . most oil tanker companies are safe. Reasonably safe." He added, however, that he did not believe federal standards for emergency response were strict enough to ensure a fast cleanup in the event of a spill, and that the heavy oil that the tankers would be carrying—mined and extracted from the bituminous sands of Alberta—would confound standard cleanup techniques. "It has different properties in the environment, which will challenge the use of our current technologies to clean it up."

(Related, from National Geographic Magazine: "The Canadian Oil Boom")

Published October 7, 2010

Tall Cedars

Photograph courtesy Cristina Mittermeier, ILCP

Chief Qwatsinas (Edward Moody) of the Nuxalk Nation and a friend of the photographer gaze at a giant cedar tree near Bella Coola, British Columbia, in this photo taken in spring 2010. The large cedars in the Great Bear Rainforest were once used in almost every aspect of the Coastal First Nations' people's lives: bark for clothing and utensils, branches for rope and fish traps, logs to make canoes.

Published October 7, 2010

Lessons of the Gulf?

Photograph courtesy Thomas P. Peschak, Save Our Seas/ILCP

Looking like a discarded piece of plastic, a hooded nudibranch, or predatory sea slug, swims to new feeding grounds with the Great Bear Rainforest trees in the background.

The pipeline project, ILCP President Mittermieier contends, is "such an inappropriate push for oil development in areas where there should be none. The lessons learned from the Gulf oil spill need to be translated into some protective action."

(Related: "Why The Gulf Oil Spill Isn't Going Away")

Pipeline owner Enbridge is responsible for an oil leak in Michigan in July. But company spokesman Roth said that the application for the Northern Gateway project was filed with federal regulators at the end of May, and that the company didn't anticipate new questions about safety even given Enbridge's recent track record. "All those issues around pipeline safety and construction, we think we've addressed them in the regulatory filing . . . it's important to remember that the Michigan pipeline was built in the 1960s and the Northern Gateway pipeline would not begin construction until 2013."

Published October 7, 2010

Spirited Snare

Photograph courtesy Ian McAllister, ILCP

A "spirit bear" snatches a fish from a Great Bear Rainforest stream.

Spirit bears, also known as Kermode bears, are a subspecies of the American black bear. The bears are not albinos but carry a recessive gene that gives one bear in ten a cream-colored coat. Spirit bears play a part in the mythologies of First Nations people and are one of three bear species—the others being black and grizzly—that give the Great Bear Rainforest its name.

Published October 7, 2010

Verdant Flow

Photograph courtesy A.S. Wright, ILCP

A Great Bear Rainforest river flows green, thanks to the nitrogen left behind by last season's decaying salmon.

Not only do salmon carcasses fertilize streams and rivers, but because bears and wolves drag half-eaten fish into the woods, the fish nourish the surrounding forest.

Princess Royal Island, where this photo was taken in June, is in the heart of the rainforest, yet is "close to the action," photographer Andy Wright said. "If you do a 180-degree turn you would see the tankers traveling past," he said.

(Related: "Gulf Oil Spill Pictures: Birds, Fish, Crabs Coated")

Published October 7, 2010

Native Resistance

Photograph courtesy Thomas P. Peschak, Save Our Seas/ILCP

A Gitga'at fisherman catches two Pacific halibut with a hand-pulled long line in the Great Bear Rainforest.

The nine Coastal First Nations are unanimously opposed to the pipeline, and a majority of First Nations tribes along the pipeline route have joined in opposition.

There are fewer than 200 Gitga'at remaining, Mittermeier said, and they and the other Coastal First Nations tribes are "so dependent on this food.

(Related, from National Geographic Magazine: PHOTOS: Scraping Bottom)

Published October 7, 2010