“This is a lovely film that says so much about the roots of environmentalism in Canada. In the 1970’s people were just beginning to worry more about environmental degradation and protecting natural ecosystems. This film was made just over half a century ago. Look how far the environmental movement has come”.
Executive Producer, Scott Renyard
Eco-history Perspective – Educational – General Audience
A Little history
Richard Allen Lloyd (Dick)Harvey was born February 19, 1930 and was an avid sport fisherman and outdoorsman. His love of the outdoors led him to the Department of Fisheries and Ocean where worked for most of his adult life. The became the manager at the Big Qualicum River hathery and oversaw many other hatcheries project in British Columbia. Dick was also an avid filmmaker and spent much of his working and recreational time filming nature and was particularly interested in the welfare of Pacific wild salmon populations. Dick passed away May 25, 2007. I never had the pleasure to meet him. But I have a great love for his dedication to nature and all the wonderful footage he gathered over his career.
This marvelous short documentary was directed by Dick and narrated by the renowned naturalist Roderick Haig-Brown. Dick made several short films, including Indian Food Fishing on the Fraser River which is also being distributed by Juggernaut Pictures, which were all nature themed.
Roderick Haig-Brown, born in England February 21, 1908 died at Campbell River, B.C on October 9, 1976 and sadly, just four years after completing this film, he passed away. Haig-Brown wrote many books about the environment and published his famous four part series about fly fishing: Fisherman’s Spring, Fisherman’s Summer, Fisherman’s Fall, Fisherman’s Winter. The fact that Dick and Roderick both ended up living on Vancouver Island and near each other led to the collaboration on this film.
In the 1970’s environmentalism was beginning to take root. I’m sure people have been concerned for centuries about changes in the abundances of resources and the human impact on those resources. We are an amazing species when it comes to over exploiting things. So I was fascinated by Dick’s look at a river ecosystem and the creatures in and around it. This is perhaps one of the first attempts to make an environmental film in British Columbia by discussing the interconnections of animals, plants, birds, and fish that depend on a wild British Columbia river. I still remember how teachers and news media talked about environmental concerns at that time. This is a very good reflection of the mood and feeling of environmental concerns in the early 1970’s.
I came into contact with Dick Harvey’s work when I was looking for footage of salmon for my film The Pristine Coast. I could have filmed most of the footage I needed myself. But I wanted to include in the film some footage shot prior to the introduction of open net pen in British Columbia waters. Dick had the perfect collection of footage from this era. While going through the footage, I came across Dick’s old films. They were his masters and were on 16mm film. After watching them, I wanted to help get them remastered so a new generation of viewers could watch his films. So, after getting permission from his wife Kathleen, I set to work to remastering Dick’s films. This film was remastered in 2014.