Some things you just can't shake.

Hello girls and boys,

Two posts in one night?! Whoa! Crazy, right?!

I simply needed to share this because it seems appropriate. Last night, Joel and I found ourselves at the Sacred Waters night at the Vancouver International Mountain Film Festival (VIMFF). And needless to say it was awesome. I have posted links below to the speakers and to the films that were shown and I think are noteworthy for people to pay attention to.

So the other day I was on a phone interview with a prospective employer and he inquired about my degree from the University of Calgary. I quickly corrected him, telling him that I had half a degree, or half of two degrees from the U of C, but he still asked about why the change. I gave him the answer about the rat race and over competitiveness that I was experiencing amongst the students and how that was not what I wanted. And I told him that I could not find a balance between the school demands and the outdoors which is where I felt I belonged. All of this is very much the truth. It is also the truth that I was in a program I loved, business.

But another truth about my decision to change directions was hidden to me until last night. Two films were on display at VIMFF, spOILed: From the Tar Sands to the Great Bear Rainforest and Awakening the Skeena. So besides being films about awesome wilderness and adventure, the heart of each film revolved around the oil and gas industry. In spOILed, it is Enbridge's Gateway Pipeline that would move oil from the Alberta tar sands to Kitimat, B.C. and in Awakening the Skeena it is Shell and their proposed developed of coal bed methane at the headwaters of three major salmon rivers. While watching Awakening the Skeena and reading literature from the spOILed booth it hit me. This went beyond the environmental activist within me to something more. I was very much headed to working for one of these companies, Enbridge, Shell or any of the other big oil and gas companies' head office in downtown Calgary. I had heard about the Gateway Pipeline and other pipeline proposals similar to it. Then there were the classes on how oil and gas is recovered, how much land and water the process requires.

When you're in class, in a city founded on oil and gas, involved in a club that gets all of its funding from the oil and gas industry, it is easy to turn a blind eye to what some of these projects will do or could do to communities and the environment. I remember entering first year university all fueled up on my perception of what was right and what was wrong in the world. Perhaps a little too convicting at times. But over the course of the next few years, my convictions went by the way side and were dampened by the activities I was involved in at school.

And it is this, that I realized last night, that even my subconscious was directing me away from the University of Calgary and onto something else where not only my love for the outdoors could flourish but where I could free my senses from the mud that I found myself in.

Above and below I have posted a few links I think anyone and everyone should take a look at. I am not as convicting as I was before, but I think by viewing these films and doing further research it is opening up dialogues about the issues surrounding the oil and gas industry, our dependence on it and how it is affecting the delicate balance that is life. Why are we unable to shake our addiction to oil?

Cheers,

K

Awakening the Skeena: A gnarly swim by the most modest person and a campaign that is run by people that care. I was fortunate enough to meet Shannon a driving force behind the campaign to stop the coal bed methane development and she is the most down to Earth, caring and motivated person I have come across in awhile.

spOILed: A beautiful area of the B.C. coast where our 21-day sea kayak expedition will paddle through in May. The main issue here is the increase in the number of oil tankers moving through this amazing area and with the oil tankers come potential disasters. Disasters that could rival the Exxon-Valdez and the BP oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico. Also, check out the Pacific Wild website and the other film Oil in Eden which further highlights the issues with the Enbridge Gateway Pipeline.

Kayaking to Save the Albatross: Hayley spoke at VIMFF about her kayak trip around the island of South Georgia near Antarctica and her cause of bringing awareness about the challenges the Albatross are facing. Hayley spoke amazingly and her passion for the cause was so evident that one could not help but want to hear more and to do whatever they could to help. Plus she attempted a kick-butt paddle trip and my desire to paddle arctic waters was further flamed.