Wed, Feb 3, 2021 7:00 pm - 8:00 pm
Whales, and the Revolution They Inspired to Protect Átl’ka7tsem/Howe Sound
Part One
Part Two
Guest speakers: Bob Turner, film-maker, and Tim Turner, educator
Our coastal inlet of Átl’ka7tsem/Howe Sound is an astonishingly wild place, yet just around the corner from metropolitan Vancouver. After decades of industrial pollution, the decommissioning of mines and mills has led to the return of herring, dolphins, and humpback and killer whales. This return of marine life has galvanized an outpouring of human will to protect this coast and strengthen its human community. This ‘standing up’ for Átl’ka7tsem/Howe Sound has taken many forms: opposition to forestry on Gambier Island, a gravel mine at McNab Creek, and LNG at Woodfibre; new advocacy groups such as the Future of Howe Sound Society and My Sea to Sky; reinvigorated collaboration among local politicians; a UNESCO Biosphere Reserve initiative; Ocean Wise and David Suzuki Foundation publications and conservation assessments; restoration of the Squamish River estuary and sound-wide eelgrass beds, and citizen science exploration and protection of glass sponge reefs.
Brothers Bob and Tim Turner have their own 4-decade long perspective on ‘standing up’ for Átl’ka7tsem/Howe Sound. Bob Turner is a film-maker with more than 20 You Tube movies about local Wild Nature, and former mayor of Bowen Island and federal geoscientist. Tim Turner is co-founder of Sea to Sky Outdoor School for Sustainability Education based in Gibsons. For 26 years, the lands and waters of Keats and Gambier Islands served as an incomparable classroom for Tim as an educator. Both live, explore and thrive in Átl’ka7tsem/Howe Sound and are self-declared, self-appointed Átl’ka7tsem/Howe Sound Rangers.
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