( intro music )
This is the Great Bear Rainforest.
This is a place on the
British Columbia, Canada coastline.
And this is one of those unique places
where you can be sitting in a boat and you look at the land
and you can watch a bear and a wolf on the beach
and you look around
and there's a humpback whale and orca in the water.
This is one of those incredible rare locations
where a wild landscape still meets the wild ocean.
Those places have largely been relegated
into the history books.
This is also the only place in the world
where humpback whales sing on their feeding grounds.
And this is what their songs sound like.
( whales singing )
So, I first went to the Great Bear Rainforest in 2010
on an expedition organized by the
International League of Conservation Photographers
to document the bio-diversity of this area.
Why?
Well, because tragically there was a proposal to put
an oil pipeline that runs from
the Alberta Oil Sands all the way to the Pacific Ocean
and then have large supertankers travelling through these
sort of remote fjords and
channels to take the oil to Asia.
And the Gitga'at First Nation, who are the local stewards
of this coastline had invited us to help them
try to raise awareness of that realm.
It's a rough coastline, it's not a place for tankers.
And in my mind, you know it's not a question of "if"
it's a question of when a spill will occur
if these tankers do move into that area.
It's just this incredible, incredible wild place.
Published in 2011-2012, and, uh
that was not the end of it for me.
I was hooked by this place.
I think I went back three seasons in a row, on my own.
Working with local NGOs and the Gitga'at First Nation's.
And for me the terrestrial realm had been documented very well.
But the underwater world, by and large, was completely unknown.
So, I went there to try to, you know
really create a exhaustive portfolio of life in the seas
of the Great Bear Rainforest.
This is the cradle of kelp evolution.
Nowhere else on Earth are there that many species of kelp.
It's a cold, it's a nutrient rich sea.
Highest diversity of starfish in temperate waters.
This is a Sunflower Starfish.
They grow to this sort of size.
They are the largest shallow water starfish in the world.
You know, three-four kilos, incredible predators.
But for me, the one species that screamed out
pulsating life were jellyfish.
And in the right months of the year, in the fjords
they aggregate in incredible numbers to spawn.
Smacks of jellyfish, that I just learnt a few years ago.
It's not schools, it's a smack.
This is basically me,
I've turned the camera around on myself
and I'm now trying to basically swim into
the densest part of the jellyfish school.
Don't ask me why. It's just, it's just one of those things.
They are caressing me.
I'm being tickled by jellyfish.
I think I get a little jellyfish hat now.
There you go. I've got a cap there.
Water is cold, it's four, five degrees.
Every hour I climb on the boat with my elbows
because I can't feel my hands or my legs.
I kind of just, you know, like
a seal of shimmy out of the boat.
I have this hot water hose in my wetsuit for 10-15 minutes
lying on the swim platform, like
you know, crying and shivering.
And I do it three or four times a day, you sleep
-really, really, really, well on-- -( audience laughter )
In the Great Bear Rainforest
the one species that is more important than any other
if there can be such a thing, is a salmon.
Now once a year these fish abandon their life in the ocean
and they move in-shore and they swim up rivers to spawn.
I arrive at this one pool, right below a waterfall
and I found this little side chamber
this little sort of nook in the corner
and I kind of wedged myself in there and I waited.
Five minutes, ten minutes,
20 minutes, 30 minutes.
I think it was about 45 minutes later that one fish came back.
( audience captivated )
And then another one came back and then I just waited
like a, you know, I couldn't move anyway, I was too cold
so I wasn't going to scare them. And then I got
-this picture. -( audience gasps )
So, all these fish just kind of huddled together waiting to
pretty much take on these mighty, mighty waterfalls.
I also, though, wanted an image that illustrated the connection
that a lot of the wildlife has with these salmon.
And I had dreamt up this picture of a split-level.
Which is half underwater, half above water.
Underwater you have the salmon, and above you have a bear
with the salmon in its mouth.
And the waterfall flowing by with a rainbow
running diagonally across the frame.
( audience laughter )
I sketched my pictures and that's what I sketched.
Very rarely do I get my sketches, but, you know, dream big.
And fail spectacularly.
( audience laughter )
Anyway, black bear expert fisherman.
He's waiting, he's waiting and he has got one.
I watched this bear for hours, he had this technique.
And once he gets one, he walks up into the forest, eats
and every 15 minutes, he comes back down he gets hungry again.
He gets another one.
He disappears and now he comes back.
In the meantime, I snuck into the water.
And he's just not sure.
You know, this is "bear snorkeling 101".
( audience laughter )
The bear can smell you even if you're in the water.
Something I learned.
I'm trying my best, I'm sneaking up to this bear.
I can see the salmon underwater.
I have this picture in my head and I try and I try...
Every time I get past this little area
right about now he spots me.
-He was like, "I got you!" -( audience laughter )
"I see you, you damn
( audience roaring with laughter )
And it's just like, and I go
"Okay, fine, I give up, man, alright, alright." Plan-B.
If I can't get a picture of a bear and a salmon,
let me get a picture of a salmon leaping
from the bear's perspective. And I have timed this.
I have 15 minutes before the bear comes back.
So, I sit where the bear sits.
And I got pummeled with salmon.
-Now... this hurts. -( audience laughter )
And you know, I had bruises.
But again I'm more worried about flash placement.
Every time I place the flash they hit the flash again.
And so, complete disastrous, disastrous mix of things.
( sound of waterfall )
And it's like the shotgun, they come in waves.
Bang, bang, bang, bang, bang!
And there's one frame that I kind of like,
and it kind of, sort of, you know, connects...
I wanted a picture that connects the salmon with the forest.
And this is what I got.
( audience gasps )
"Salmon in the trees", I call it.
( audience laughter )