There are no good guys or bad guys in the documentary Konelīne and that extraordinary lack of judgement is what rivets attention as the film examines the changing landscape and lifestyles of northwestern British Columbia.

As massive machinery moves into the wild landscape, first to build the Northwest Transmission Line and then to work on the Brucejack gold mine and the Red Chris copper mine, lives are disrupted or changed and, whether it is a lineman, miner, guide outfitter, First Nations elder or Tahltan language student, director Nettie Wild captures the love that all the characters have for the wilderness.

What some call progress, others see as the end of a way of life. Some hunt on the land, some mine it and they all love it.

Perhaps the heart of the film is expressed by a young Tahltan man, working for the mining company, who explains, with a slightly wry smile, that he is putting food on the table by mining what his grandparents are fighting to protect.

Konelīne (pronounced Koe-ne-lee-neh) is the Tahltan word for “our land beautiful” and that is what the film depicts, with stunning footage of a guide outfitter swimming her horses across the swollen Stikine River, a “pillow of blood” draining from a newly killed moose and startling scenes of one of the biggest helicopters in the world lowering a 16,000-pound transmission tower while linemen on the ground struggle to stand in the whirlwind created by the rotors as they wrestle the base into place.

Caught in a chopper down wash, linemen build the Northwest Transmission Line in a scene from Konelīne.

The helicopter scene incorporates the essential elements of the film, Wild said.

“It had the elegance of engineering, it had the beauty of the landscape, the brawn and dexterity of the linemen and the environmental devastation of the clearcuts. It was all there,” she said.

“It’s complex and full of contradictions and has a beauty to it even if people can’t stand the Northwest Transmission Line and everything it represents.”

The film does not lecture and does not tell the audience what to think, Wild emphasized.

“Instead, we have sought to find poetry in every person in front of our lens.”

That meant being able to look at the humanity and complexity of people working in the mining industry, at a time when it is often vilified, she said.

“I have been able to look in that world where the word environmentalist is often seen as a swear word,” Wild said.

KONELINE TRAILER 2.0 from Canada Wild Productions on Vimeo.

In other twists, a big game hunter comes across as one of the biggest environmentalists in the movie and non-native hunters shoot with a bow and arrow, while First Nations hunters kill a moose with a high-powered rifle.

The documentary, which won the Best Canadian Feature award at the Hot Docs Film Festival in Toronto, has three showings left in Vancouver at the Vancity Theatre, will show in Victoria at the Cinecenta Theatre on Dec. 2 to 5 and will be in Calgary in early December, Courtenay in February and Maple Ridge in April.

In a question and answer session with DeSmog Canada, Wild, whose previous films took a more traditional, conflict-driven approach, explained how she came to make Konelīne and why she believes it is important to “cut through the din of rhetoric” and find common ground.

Q. Tell me a little about your background.

A. I am known for making political feature documentaries. I call them high-stakes, real-life dramas, so my work has taken me all around the world filming revolutions really. Revolutions of thought or armed revolutions. . . . I made a little deal with myself when I started in this game — which is a hard one — I made myself two promises. First, that with each project I would try and change the form of my art as far as possible and secondly I would work with different people who would help twist my head a bit and I have done that.

Nettie Wild, riding in the mountains of B.C., is the director of Konelīne: Our Land Beautiful.

Q. Why did you decide to make this film?

A.  Two reasons. I have had the very real privilege of exploring northwestern B.C. on foot and by horseback over the last 20 years and I love it and I am aware it is on the cusp of huge change. The time was ripe for a snapshot in time of this magnificent landscape and the very real forces of change that were rolling out across it. I knew there was a clock ticking.

The other reason is I felt really strongly that there is a roar of rhetoric around the development issue. People are screaming at each other and I’m not sure that too many people are actually listening and I think that is dangerous because, as a larger community, we are all involved in a mutual project which is trying to dialogue with each other and trying to build a more sustainable planet and, if we are screaming at each other, it is dangerous. So I thought what is it that I can bring, at this time, to this landscape that I love so much? I am not Tahltan and I am not from the industry. I am from away. What can I bring? Then I thought — art. I can bring the best film crew I can find and our mutual objective was to find the poetry in every person in front of our lens. Park our judgement and look for that poetry and complexity in everyone.

Oscar Dennis runs his dogs across Tahltan territory.

Q. How did you manage not to be judgemental?

A. It wasn’t so much a matter of trying to find middle ground, it was more that, when things came up, and it was something you might be judgemental about — park it. A lot of times we had absolutely no idea where the scenes were going. They completely surprised us. It was more keep the door open, keep curious and park the judgemental heart. . . . . It was more being aware of my own assumptions and just putting them aside and then finding that, when you do that, people open up. They will make themselves vulnerable if they have that sense, but it’s like if someone senses something is sexist or racist they close down. If they think deep down that you think they shouldn’t be doing that job, they just clam up, but the opposite happens when you say “really, what are you doing there? Is that frightening or is it dangerous?” It’s that curiosity that people respond to and then you will find that people often offer up the vulnerabilities that they face.

Every single person that I talked to when I began the research, I asked “why is it you are doing what you are doing?” and every single person without exception said “I am here because of a love of the bush.” So I thought that is where the film is going to start.

Q. What reaction do you get from audiences?

A. That’s why the film is controversial in a weird sort of way. Most people come up to me afterwards and say thanks for not telling us what they think. Other people are really upset that I didn’t give the gears to the mining industry. It’s very intriguing and I am saying bring it on, let’s talk about it. If we are addressing the mining industry or any resource-extraction industry with a voice full of vitriol there is no room for another sort of conversation that maybe will lead to light rather than dark. I am not saying people don’t have well-earned anger, but in these 96 minutes maybe we can go to another place.

Q. What was the hardest scene to shoot, either for you personally or because of technical problems?

A. Physically, filming the horse going across the river and then going across the glacier was really tough . . . . . It’s hell to film from horseback so we had to ditch our horses and run ahead . . . . .One moment I became aware of that kind of movement that you know is full of danger — you catch it out of the corner of your eye — and I looked over at (the cameraman) holding the huge camera and he’s cradling it in his arms sitting down, except he’s sliding down and picking up speed. His feet were wind-milling trying to get purchase. .  . .  Finally he gets purchase on a rock.

Guide outfitter Heidi Gutfrucht (in boat) swimming her horses across the Stikine River.

For me, personally, I found myself at one point when I couldn’t get anywhere near Imperial Metals and the Red Chris Mine and then, on the First Nations side, the woman who was leading the blockade told me one night that I had to contribute my truck to the blockade or lose access. I tried to convince her that my camera was more useful to her than my truck, but she wouldn’t have it, so, at that point I was excluded from everything and it was really a lonely place. . . . . . My editor and cinematographer took me aside and said “you said you wanted to make a different film than you have ever made before — walk away from the blockade. Leave it. We have seen them before and it’s old time conflict and we are talking about digging deeper in more surprising areas and this is forcing you to do that.” So that’s what we did and focused on the transmission line more than the mine and look what we got. . . . It’s funny how life does that. On the one hand it feels like it’s defeating you and, on the other hand, when you make art like this, you just have to immerse yourself even deeper. When you know you are in trouble, it usually means you are on to something.

Q. What did you learn from this film?

A. I think what this film has really, really taught me is that there is a real role for art in the heart of controversy. When we go in and say we are trying to find the poetry, a lot of time we are trying to shoot in the abstract rather than the concrete. That doesn’t mean we are trying to be arty for the sake of being ambiguous, but we are trying to find things that maybe seem familiar in an unfamiliar way and that allows us to chisel away at stereotypes. . . . . It’s almost like the story comes in through your skin, rather than someone wagging their finger at you. As an artist, that has been extraordinary and I have turned a huge corner in terms of the way we have shot this and cut it. We shot it in the abstract and cut it like a piece of music. . . . You still have to deliver a story, but you do it in a different way.

The northern lights on the Northwest Transmission Line.

Q. How long did it take to make this movie?

A. Four years. That’s starting from research and getting money together and shooting for a year — although we weren’t shooting every single day. Then we were 65 weeks in the edit room. It was the hardest edit ever. Because we were making that piece of music instead of a character-driven story that I was so used to doing and have done all my life. I am very proud of the films I have made in the past — don’t get me wrong — but this one is different. . . . .The main character is the land and in saying that, you are putting together a very different story structure than following one person through a challenge that he or she has to face.

– Find additional screening information on the Koneline website

This interview has been condensed.

Main Image: Diamond driller and sunrise over Northwest B.C.

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An ugly thread of misspent taxpayer dollars, environmental destruction and conflict-of-interest — backed by a government beholden to the mining industry — runs along the recently completed Northwest Transmission Line, charges acclaimed explorer and scholar Wade Davis.

The $716-million transmission line, budgeted in 2010 at $404-million, snakes 344 kilometres into B.C.’s wilderness, from north of Terrace to Bob Quinn Lake, and, to the alarm of downstream Southeast Alaska residents, the line is opening the area to mining in the headwaters of vital salmon-bearing rivers.

Those concerns have grown exponentially since the Mount Polley tailings dam collapsed in August 2014, sending 24-million cubic metres of toxic debris flowing into Hazeltine Creek and Quesnel Lake, and groups in B.C. and Alaska are warning that a Mount Polley-type disaster in the area known as the Sacred Headwaters, where acidity is likely to be high, would wipe out the multi-billion dollar fishing and tourism industries on both sides of the border.

Davis, a writer, former explorer-in-residence at the National Geographic Society, anthropology professor and B.C. Leadership Chair in Cultures and Ecosystems at Risk at the University of B.C., is appalled at the B.C. government’s decision to encourage mining in the ecologically rich northwest corner of the province and at the lack of government oversight as the pricey Northwest Transmission Line was carved through the wilderness.[view:in_this_series=block_1]

“It’s industrialization of the wilderness. It’s the story of politicians more concerned about the next election than the next generation,” he said.

Davis, who sometimes visits 30 countries a year, loves the wild beauty of B.C.’s northwest corner, which has the world’s largest population of stone sheep, grizzly bears, caribou and wolves.

“It’s not for nothing that it is called the Serengeti of Canada,” he said.

A Sweet Deal for Imperial Metals

All of which makes it inexplicable that the government would forego future high-end tourism opportunities by encouraging mining on a site such as Todagin Mountain where the Red Chris mine, owned by Imperial Metals — the same company that owns the Mount Polley mine— opened in February, he said.

An Energy and Mines Ministry spokesman, responding to questions by e-mail, said the province, Imperial Metals and Tahltan Nation — which approved a co-management agreement with the company in April — have been working to develop wildlife management strategies “to take care of this resource for future generations.”

That does not satisfy Davis, who owns the closest private property to the $650-million Red Chris copper and gold mine and believes the Liberal government has bulldozed ahead with the power line without a proper review and despite public concerns.

“The government was 100 per cent engaged in an effort to make this happen to the point of deceiving the Canadian people and certainly squandering their tax revenue,” he said, questioning the influence of party fundraisers.

Murray Edwards, controlling shareholder of Imperial Metals Corp. — a major donor to the B.C. Liberals — organized a $1-million fundraiser at the Calgary Petroleum Club for Premier Christy Clark shortly before the last election.

B.C. Government Committed to Mining Expansion

It is expected that mining companies will push for concessions, but it is also expected that the government will ask the important questions to minimize environmental damage, said Davis, who has frequently worked with industry and says he has no objection to responsible mining.

“But, here we have a government that is ideologically committed to making (Red Chris) go ahead,” said Davis, who speculates that Imperial Metals was given an easy ride to avoid the perception of a power line to nowhere.

Financial experts believe it was essential for Imperial Metals to get cash flow from Red Chris as soon as possible because Mount Polley remained closed for nearly one year and cleanup costs are estimated at between $67-million and $100-million. In May, the company reported a loss of $33.4 million during the first three months of the year.

The Northwest Transmission Line was billed by government as the engine that would drive economic development in the province’s northwest by powering up revenue-generating mining operations in the richly mineralized area.

So far, Red Chris is the only mine drawing power from the line. After a provincial review, the mine received provincial approval in June to operate the tailings storage pond, which has the same unlined earth and rock dam design as Mount Polley.

Red Chris is likely to be followed by Seabridge Gold’s Kerr-Sulpherets-Mitchell (KSM) mine, in the Unuk River headwaters, which will be one of the world’s largest open-pit copper and gold mines. KSM has received federal and provincial approval and is tying up funding for the $5.3-billion project while obtaining permits. The mine is expected to employ more than 1,000 people for 50 years.

The transmission line is also bringing power to the Tahltan community of Iskut, whose 350 residents previously relied on diesel, and to the $725-million, 195-megawatt AltaGas Forrest Kerr run-of-river independent power project.

AltaGas contributed $180-million of the cost and Imperial Metals contributed $69 million of the $209 million cost to build the Iskut extension. BC Hydro then purchased the extension for about $52 million.

Davis charges that the environmental insensitivities of Imperial Metals were revealed during the extension’s construction when the company clearcut to the edge of the scenic Stewart-Cassiar Highway, instead of leaving a buffer zone of trees as shown in the original plans.

Cutting trees adjacent to the highway is allowed and the company had all necessary permits, according to the ministry.

“As much as possible, the cutting is contained within the right-of-way of the highway to reduce impact to the visual quality of the surrounding landscape. In some instances, due to geotechnical and safety concerns (i.e. slope stability,) the power lines are located away from the highway,” said the ministry spokesman.

Taxpayers on the Hook?

The Iskut project enabled the province to obtain $130 million from the federal Green Infrastructure Fund. But, according to Davis, that is something that should make taxpayers uneasy when they look at the bill of almost $400,000 per resident and he questions labelling the project as green when, during construction, the equivalent of 14,000 logging truckloads of wood were burned.

BC Hydro has said the timber was burned because it was marginal and the long distance to roads and markets made selling it uneconomical.

 A Mining Association of B.C. study estimates the transmission line will attract $15-billion in mining investment, 10,000 jobs and $300 million in annual tax revenue.

However, energy economics expert Marvin Shaffer, adjunct professor at Simon Fraser University, would like British Columbians to look carefully at those figures, especially as the province decided to go ahead with the project without a B.C. Utilities Commission review.

“The rate policy in B.C. effectively subsidizes new mines and this was a line that was heavily subsidized,” he said.

Metal mines require large amounts of electricity. The standard industrial rate charged in B.C. is $40 to $50 per megawatt hour, but the draw on power means more power sources are needed and producing electricity from new sources, such as the Site C dam, will cost about $90 per megawatt hour, Shaffer said.

“An individual mine will consume up to 10 per cent of the output of Site C and the price doesn’t cover even half the cost of a new supply,” he said.

“The government argues that it is economic development, so then you have to ask: what are the benefits in subsidizing mining developments?”

Many of the jobs are likely to go to people living outside the province, Shaffer said.

“There might be some stimulus, but it’s not as if it’s going to be employing a lot of British Columbians who would otherwise be unemployed,” he said.

Image Credit: BC Hydro

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