The Great Bear, a national treasure

WWF

By Emma Gillies, WWF-Canada Communications Intern
In my life I have been lucky enough to be able to travel. I have experienced the grandiosity of Milford Sound in New Zealand. The Massai Mara in Kenya put me within four feet of an elegant and thankfully recently fed cheetah. I have watched the sun rise with 18,000 other people at a full moon party in Koh Phangan Thailand, and tubed lazily down a river for 5 hours in Vang Vieng, Laos.

Visiting New Zealand in 2007. (C) Emma Gillies, WWF-Canada

I have met people from diverse cultures all holding different beliefs. I have learned the beauty and grace that comes with putting your trust in strangers. But I wouldn’t have done any of this had it not been for the first trip. The beginning of my love for travel started the minute I began exploring Canada.
We are all so inclined to take a plane as far away as possible. Why Vancouver when there’s Paris? Why Banff when there’s the Alps?
But I think a key to understanding ourselves, our heritage and our ancestry, is to witness our own country’s unique landscape first- To sit amongst Canada’s mountains; to dip our toes in the Pacific Ocean for the first time (or, if you’re really brave, the Atlantic); to take a step outside our sometimes overwhelming cities and breathe in the fresh air of a true Canadian countryside.

With a friend in Banff, Alberta. (C) Emma Gillies, WWF-Canada

I can still remember the first time I travelled to B.C. and found myself on a bus weaving in and out of the Rocky Mountains. I don’t think I knew just how much I loved my own country until the moment I gazed up at the mountains and realized with startling clarity that one could see a hundred pictures taken from a hundred different angles and nothing will ever be able to replicate the feeling you have when you stand in front of such an enormous and powerful example of nature’s achievements.
Following last week’s introduction of WWF’s new Canadian’s for the Great Bear, I had the pleasure of meeting this strong-willed group, and was given a disheartening education on the potential future plight of the Great Bear Rainforest. We are not talking about just a forest, but about one of the last temperate rainforests in the entire world. And our government wants to run a pipeline through it. It’s the equivalent of throwing a can of red paint on a new white couch. Irreversible damage will be done.

Khutze Estuary in the heart of the Great Bear Rainforest, British Columbia, Canada. (C) Andrew S. Wright, WWF-Canada

Canadians talk a lot about what we want our legacy to be. What we want to leave our kids with. In history books written 100 years from now, do we really want to be the generation that stands idly by while we fail to protect one of the last pristine parts of our Canadian landscape?
I want to make sure my children have the same opportunities to see the world that I had. But more so, I want to make sure this beautiful  landscape is still the Canadian treasure and thriving community that it is today.
What will our legacy be?