Fine Art Landscape Photography of the Pacific Northwest

Story: This is an image of Fish Lake in the Chilcotin of British Columbia. For many years now, Taseko Mines has been pursuing the development of a mine in this area. The proposal submitted by the company suggests that Fish Lake be used as a tailings pond for the toxic sludge ejected from the mine. In a recent decision, the federal government rejected Taseko Mines proposal for an open pit mine here.

The first time I saw this lake was in 2012 on a photography trip with my friend Matt. He showed me a place on the shore of the lake where he made the decision to leave East Germany and emigrate to Canada. I could see a deep sadness and fear in him that someday this sacred place would be destroyed.

As someone that has spent most of my life photographing the wilderness of British Columbia, I am more than familiar with the effect of industry on our natural heritage. Most accessible valleys in BC have been brutally raped by logging and mining companies. Little natural land remains accessible to most people that live in BC and less than that is ever seen by even a small fraction of us.

While we praise ourselves for protecting the natural beauty of our wilderness and chastise others for their lack of environmental sensitivity, we relentlessly destroy much of our own wild land. The vast majority of people that live here have no way to evaluate the validity of government and industry claims that they are protecting our natural heritage. No way to know because they so rarely ever see what happens in distant valley bottoms or on remote mountain slopes. My life of being outside tells me all I need to know about what is really happening. And I am sad about it.....very sad. I wish so deeply for a time when I can look down a valley from the top of a mountain and smile. That I can smile at a government and industry that show respect for what they are doing, for nature, and for what they will leave their own children.

It will always be easy to advocate short term jobs and immediate economic gain over reasoned, respectful, careful development of natural land. Most of our politicians will take the popular way out at the expense of caution and common sense. But we need to be more careful than they will be. We need to be less easily manipulated by the interests of industry then they are.

How can you help save Fish Lake? Go to: http://www.protectfishlake.ca, read about the area and the proposed mine. And, if you think we should save this place from destruction, fill out the Online petition.