2014: Arno Kopecky, The Oil Man and the Sea

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Description

With Enbridge Inc.'s Northern Gateway proposal nearing approval, supertankers loaded with two million barrels of bitumen each may soon join herring, humpbacks and salmon on their annual migration through the tumultuous waters off British Columbia's Central Coast – a place no oil tanker has been before. The contentious project has aroused intense opposition, pitting local First Nations, a majority of British Columbia's urban population, and environmental groups across the country against an international consortium led by Enbridge and backed by a federal government determined to make Canada an "energy superpower."

Arno Kopecky sails into the controversy aboard a forty-one-foot cutter for a closer look at a legendary region with a knife at its throat. Without any prior sailing experience, Kopecky and his sailing companion – photographer Ilja Herb – struggle to keep afloat as they make their way through a volatile labyrinth of fjords, inlets, and evergreen islands known as the Great Bear Rainforest. This amphibious ecosystem is among the last great wildernesses on earth, housing a quarter of the world's temperate rainforest and a thriving ocean environment that together host forty per cent more biomass per hectare than the Amazon. But as Kopecky soon discovers, the politics of Big Oil and First Nations can be every bit as treacherous to navigate as the shifting currents and hidden reefs for which the Northern Gateway tanker route is known.

Judges' Comments

For all that has been written about the Northern Gateway pipeline that may one day transport bitumen from the Alberta oil sands to the British Columbia coast, Arno Kopecky’s The Oil Man and the Sea reveals a different side of the issue, as a first-hand look at the people and places that stand to be affected most by the project. To accomplish this, Kopecky, along with photographer Ilja Herb, spent 12 weeks sailing the treacherous coastal passages of the Great Bear Rainforest, set to become a busy oil tanker route. Along the way, the novice sailors spend time with local residents, including many First Nations members, and listen to their concerns about the pipeline and its effects on their way of life and the rainforest’s fragile ecosystem. In an evocative, engaging way that submissions to a regulatory agency could never accomplish, The Oil Man and the Sea puts a human face on a complicated, controversial issue. 

Learn More

• Publisher: Douglas & McIntyre
• Website: douglas-mcintyre.com/products/9781771001076

Explore the works of our previous Edna Staebler Award for Creative Non-Fiction winners.