With a curious mind and a camera I'm going to Telegraph Creek in northern Canada, back to where I grew up. There is a beautiful, wide valley accessible only by a narrow steep gravel road, by boat from the mouth of the Stikine river or by bush plane. This is where I lived from the ages of 3 and a half to 13 and a half.Now I see it with the eyes of an adult, with the perspective of having lived far away in an urban environment and in different countries. When I was a child the Tahltan first nation and the settlers came together successfully to protest against the building of a huge hydroelectric dam on the Stikine river.
Recently Tahltans and others campaigned successfully to keep Shell from developing coal bed methane in the Sacred Headwaters in the Klappan area. But the moratorium on that project is temporary and it is just one of many resource extraction projects which are in the starting gates.
What will the future of the Stikine river region be? Will development of the natural resources proceed at a pace and on a scale which leaves delicate and diverse ecosystems intact while providing long term employment and prosperity for the people who live here?
I'm shooting footage and doing research for a documentary under the working title of Confluence. Confluence is a metaphor for the coming together of cultures, ideas, past and future a metaphor which comes from the Stikine river which grows as streams and rivers flow into it.
Ethan Reitz
