Blue is the New Green - Family Film Nights on Haida Gwaii

BBC's Deep Blue Trailer

This weekend, Haida Fisheries and the Haida Oceans Technical Team offered a Family Film Night in Masset on Friday and in Skidegate on Saturday. Living Oceans Society helped to sponsor this event, so I was able to go up to Haida Gwaii to talk about Living Oceans and to watch the videos in both communities.

The first movie shown was "Once Upon a Tide" - a fantastic 10-minute animated film created by the Center for Health and Global Environment at Harvard Medical School. This film tells the story of a young girl's first trip to see the ocean. To watch this video you can visit the Once Upon a Tide website.

The second film that was shown was the BBC's Deep Blue (see above for the video trailer), a 90 minute film comprising of amazing footage of the incredible life found in our oceans around the world.

After watching these two films, it is hard to remain indifferent about our oceans. I hope that the community members who took part in the film night will also plan to attend Gaaysiigang - An Ocean Forum for Haida Gwaii on January 22-24.

On a personal note: I found my weekend up in Haida Gwaii quite valuable as well. Seeing a new place on the PNCIMA coast and being able to talk to the intelligent, invested, and gracious people who live there helped me to (once again) see the value in integrated marine planning. As the movie demonstrated, we all rely on the ocean to provide us with many different vital services. Planning for our oceans needs to incorporate the interests of everyone (and everything) that shares our coast. And what a beautiful coast it is!