Water & Climate Stories

Water touches our lives in so many ways and draws us into its mystical power, and now climate is affecting us like never before. Have there been touch points in your life that have been stirred by a deeply profound and emotional experience of water or climate change? Are you grateful for the use of water in your life every single day? How have you or your community been personally affected by our changing climate and what are you doing to mitigate those effects? We’d love to hear and share all of your stories.

How a Documentary Changed My Life

by Julia Barnes
2023 Water Docs Communications & Marketing Assistant

“Are we in the right theatre?” I asked, as we walked up the aisle, surveying rows of empty seats. My mom and I were the only people in a room meant to accommodate 200. 

We chose seats in the middle of the back row beneath the projection booth. Minutes ticked by as we joked about getting a private screening, until three more people trickled in. 

The floors vibrated with the rumbling sound effects from an action movie playing in the next theatre over. It was a Friday night and most people chose to escape reality rather than face it.

Environmental documentaries have a tough time competing with Hollywood films. They rarely get theatrical runs. I was there because I had seen the trailer for Revolution and recognized the filmmaker’s voice. His first film, Sharkwater, was shown in my science class back when I was in grade 7. While I had felt powerless to help sharks at the time, the movie had a big impact on me. I didn’t know exactly what to expect from the follow-up but I had a feeling it would be important. 

Revolution came out in 2013 when I was a 16 year-old high school student.  With post-secondary looming, I was weighing the options of pursuing a degree in biology or art. 

The lights in the cinema dimmed. Hammerheads swam across opening credits and I forgot all about counting the number of people in the room. 

Rob Stewart narrated what was simultaneously a personal story about his love of nature and a sweeping narrative about the evolution of life over billions of years. It painted a picture of the dire state of the natural world with striking statistics and footage that revealed the rapid deterioration of our planet.

When the film ended I was shaking. Angry about everything that was wrong in the world but excited because I was determined to do something about it.

I spent the next week reading everything I could about ocean acidification, deforestation, and climate change, trying to figure out how I could make a difference. The problems were urgent. Solving them would require massive changes to the way society functions. We would need lots of people working together toward common goals to create those changes. Yet, it seemed like most people didn’t know or care about environmental issues.

It was an interview with Rob Stewart that made me consider filmmaking as a vehicle for change. He talked about the importance of education. His first film, Sharkwater, had ignited a global movement to save sharks. Once people knew what was happening they were inspired to act. Rob also mentioned that he’d had no background in filmmaking before he started. He had learned everything as he went along. 

I had witnessed the power of film to evoke a sense of urgency and I wanted to pay forward the same inspiration that sparked my own desire to change the world. A week after watching Revolution, I bought a camera and signed up for scuba diving lessons. 

I wanted to make a documentary focused on the ocean – the biggest and most important ecosystem on the planet, yet the one that is most often overlooked. 

After getting certified as a diver and completing my checkout dives in a frigid quarry lake, I headed to the warm Florida Keys to start filming.

Growing up in Southern Ontario, I had never been to the ocean. The reef was the most beautiful thing I had ever seen. It was full of life and colour. Diving there gave me a sense of connection unlike anything else. There are so many species constantly interacting with each other on a reef and when you enter that world you become a part of it. Every time you move, every time you breathe, the ocean reacts. 

On my first dive I met two sharks, a large stingray, and a baby sea turtle. There were tiny gobies living in burrows in the sand and Christmas tree worms who disappeared into holes on the reef whenever something moved over them. As the dive was nearing its end I watched a school of midnight parrot fish descend over the edge of the reef like a waterfall. The experience deepened my love of the ocean but I was no closer to completing a documentary. 

With no experience in filmmaking, I had gone to Florida with the naïve idea that I would get everything I needed for a feature film. After spending several hours filming underwater (footage that never made it into the movie) and interviewing a few scientists (forgetting to turn on the microphone for one of the interviews), I realized there was a very big learning curve and I discovered that making a documentary would take a lot longer than I thought.

When I got home I continued researching stories to cover and people to interview. Each interview led to more questions and expanded the scope of the film. I documented events like the Our Ocean conference, the largest climate protests in history, and the Paris Agreement at COP21.

Along the way I connected with Rob Stewart, the brilliant filmmaker whose work had inspired me. He offered to help with my documentary efforts. Anytime I had a question about film, I went to him for advice. Rob connected me with the right people to work with and suggested new stories to cover. 

As my film was nearing completion, I travelled to Australia to meet with Rob’s friend and colleague Dave Hannan, an Emmy Award-winning underwater cinematographer who is passionate about protecting the ocean. Dave connected me with the world’s top coral scientists who I interviewed about ocean warming and acidification – two interconnected issues that pose a severe threat to coral reefs as both are caused by C02 emissions, when they come together, the combined effect is worse than the sum of their parts. 

I was most excited to interview Charlie Veron, who’s known as the Godfather of coral reefs. He’s authored over 100 scientific articles and named 20% of all coral species in the world. When I spoke with him, Charlie told me that he didn’t think it was possible to save coral reefs. He told me that there’s enough carbon currently in the atmosphere, that even if emissions stopped immediately, it would continue to be absorbed into the ocean for decades to come, putting ocean acidification on track to reach levels that make the survival of corals impossible. 

I was stunned. Here was the world’s leading coral expert telling me coral reefs were doomed. At that point I had already spent two and a half years filmmaking and suddenly it felt like it had all been for nothing. If we lose coral reefs, we lose at least 25% of ocean species along with them, and I knew that ocean acidification didn’t just threaten corals. The plankton who produce most of the oxygen in the air we breathe would also be negatively affected. 

It felt hopeless. I wasn’t sure if there was any point in continuing to make a documentary. I was considering giving up. But before I made that decision, I needed to talk to Rob. 

We met in California and filmed an interview at his house. There was a military base nearby and every few minutes a helicopter would fly overhead creating so much noise we had to pause and wait for it to pass. During the interview, I asked about the lag in the absorption of carbon into the ocean and what that meant for our activism. Rob was relentlessly optimistic. He talked about the potential to sequester carbon before it goes into the ocean by bringing back nature. Forests, grasslands, even fish sequester carbon. All of these things have been decimated. Imagine the potential if we helped to bring them back to life?

Off-camera we brainstormed about the film. Rob suggested I go to a place in Mexico called Cabo Pulmo. The area was once a fishing village, but it had been overfished. With almost nothing left in the ocean, the people had created a marine protected area. Within 10 years, life there had bounced back. 

I visited Cabo Pulmo on Rob’s recommendation. What I witnessed was a thriving ecosystem teeming with life. There were huge schools of Jacks, Mobula Rays, and Panamic Porkfish. Garden eels poked their heads out of the sand in a rhythmic dance. Moray eels, who normally hide in crevices on reefs, swam around with no fear.

The story of Cabo Pulmo proves that even when it seems like it’s too late to act, we might be surprised by the resilience of nature. I decided not to give up on saving coral reefs. However, I am cautious about putting too much faith in nature’s resilience because even though it can sometimes be miraculous, it does have its limits. 

The last trip I made when filming Sea of Life was a fun one. I went to Bimini – a tiny island in the Bahamas – to swim with my favourite species of shark; the Great Hammerhead. This trip had been in the works for years. I had previously signed up for a group expedition that was cancelled for lack of participants. This time I hired a private boat. I was determined to get beautiful footage to use at the beginning and end of my documentary. Then the most unexpected thing happened. The day I arrived on the island, I ran into Rob. We hugged and chatted about hammerheads. I didn’t know it at the time, but that would be the last time I ever saw him. 

I went out the next day on clear, bright blue water. The sharks showed up the moment the boat stopped. Great Hammerheads are heartbreakingly beautiful. They have fantastic personalities that tend to be somewhat shy and curious at the same time. I chose to freedive, holding my breath and swimming down. The sharks let me get close to them. It was a magical day where everything went right and I got exactly the footage I was looking for.

From then on, all that was left was editing. I spent a few months combing through footage and piecing together the massive jigsaw puzzle that became Sea of Life. It had taken 3 years, 7 countries and over 50 interviews, and finally it was done. 

Sea of Life began its festival run at the 2017 Water Docs Film Festival. A few months into it, I received the worst email possible. Rob was missing. He had been diving off the coast of Florida and had disappeared. No one knew if he was alive or not but there was a search effort and an urgent call for help.

From my office in Ontario, I began phoning every boat, airplane and helicopter charter in Florida, enlisting more vehicles to join the search. I booked and cancelled flights to Miami, constantly debating whether I would be of more use co-ordinating from behind a computer or on the water in-person. When someone is lost at sea, time is critical. Every hour that passes expands the size of the search area and the chances of finding the person alive diminish. 

Each day the search went on, I was aware that the outcome looked grimmer but I was too sleep deprived and too busy to think much about it. When it reached the point that every place I called had already been contacted by someone, it was time to stop working behind the scenes and join the in-person search. I booked the next flight to Miami. An hour later, they found his body. That day, the world lost one of the most powerful advocates for the ocean and for life on earth. 

Rob proved that it’s possible to do great things when you’re passionate about something and you take action. His films have inspired countless people to protect our planet. I am grateful for the impact Rob had on my life. He was the reason I became a filmmaker, diver, and activist. His advice shaped my film and his encouragement kept me going. 

Sea of Life went on to screen in over 50 film festivals around the world. It has been shown in schools, libraries, dive conferences, and environmental summits. Whenever I attended a screening, people would come up to me to say that the movie inspired them to take action. In those moments, all the hard work paid off. 

Rob was right about the power of film. His movies continue to have ripple effects through the people he inspired with them. I’ve added a few drops. So have others. I hope the waves we make collectively will build to a tsunami big enough to tackle the problems the world currently faces.

The Cabin (a.k.a. The Experiment)

The following story has been contributed by our 2023 Humber College intern, Ben Melville, as he relates his memories of growing up and spending time at The Cabin, an off grid property owned by his family. To understand what that experience is truly all about, Ben interviewed his father in-depth about The Cabin and he shares that with us here. The story has been edited for clarity and length.

When I was in grade 5 or 6, my dad bought a rural property. It’s about 40 acres of land in the Lanark Highlands, an hour or so southwest of Ottawa. We call it…

The Cabin

by Ben Melville
2023 Humber College Intern

The Cabin sits right at the top of a steep hill in a grassy clearing that turns into a solid, rocky, and mossy patch of the Canadian Shield. All around the clearing is a beautiful forest of oak, maple, birch, ash, spruce, and other trees as well. We cultivate patches of wildflowers in the clearing that are swarmed with bees, dragonflies, and butterflies in the spring and summer. Down below the hill, there’s a large pond and a swamp which you can see from the deck. That’s where mosquitoes, black flies, and deer flies breed but it's also home to birds, beavers, and countless frogs. The Cabin itself is a small building with a kitchen, living room, a loft and a master bedroom, that until recently, was filled with bunk beds to accommodate whomever was visiting.

Over the years, steady improvements to the property such as adding a satellite wifi-router, re-doing the roads with gravel, digging new drainage ditches, building an outhouse, clearing large swathes of the property, and restoring the solar system, have turned the shell Dad originally bought into a comfortable, nearly four-season space (four seasons if you don't mind sponge baths and melting snow for drinking water in the wintertime, because the water system doesn’t work when it gets too cold). 

I wanted to talk about this place that has become an important place to me over the years because it’s been somewhere to spend time with good friends, somewhere to recharge after a long week, somewhere to reconnect with nature, and somewhere to reflect and enjoy both the relaxation and the hard work needed to keep it functional. Although the space is important to me, my father is the one who has the deepest relationship with The Cabin. He takes care of the property. He lives there as often as he can. He spends countless hours renovating and improving it. He’s there with the birds he loves to feed, with the wildflowers he loves to cultivate, with the trees and with the wind. For this posting, I felt it would be best to hear it from him firsthand.

The following are excerpts from an hour-long interview I conducted with him in early March of this year.

BM: This whole Cabin thing, where did it all start for you?

“I’ve been gardening since I was a kid, 8 years old, trying to garden, trying to teach myself to garden. I was inspired by my grandparents, particularly Grandpa Tom. My first years, so you know, from zero to 10 or 12, we had 50 acres of land in the Caledon Hills just to the northwest of Toronto. That was where I spent my summers and oftentimes part of my winters. To be out in a place, in a space, that was nature… there was something that Grandpa Tom loved about it, something my father loved about it… and there's a story there too. And certainly, your grandmother, Ellen as well. It's a deep love affair of what the Canadian natural scene was about, whether it was the Canadian north or rural landscapes in southern Ontario, there’s a deep attachment to colour and sounds and life. And having that attachment to land… well, it's just a genetic dream, Ben, it's just always been there.”

BM: How did that turn into The Cabin? How did The Cabin become a part of your life?

“That experience transmogrified into 10 years of international work in remote places, which included desertifying West Africa and northern Benin and Mali. Working with farmers in the Caucasus Mountains region in Azerbaijan. [...] And when we came back to Canada in 2004, it was really the first time in my life that I was in a city.  But six years later, we had our 40 acres. So, you know, I live with that 40 acres, and we call it The Cabin. [...]

It's a continued part of that story, that deep relationship with land, water, life, food, relationships with people. And another big part of the story is our relationships with life as we understand it. We are so much in a unique time of history. What better way to help us understand our relationships with life and our planet than to be connected to water, soil, the trees, the skies above us, and the cycles of life?”

BM: You’ve always called it “The Cabin”. Why “cabin” instead of “cottage”? Is that intentional?

“Cabin is a nice word, it colours all of our imaginations. People hear the word cabin and they think something or they see something in their mind's eye. My relationship with what The Cabin means is… it's 40 acres of land, it's in the Canadian Shield, it has a lot of water on it. We have 4 hectares of natural swamp, we've got about a 2 hectare pond, we have a watershed off of our hills that feeds into both those water spaces. The Cabin is an exercise in trying to “be” in the world differently, with more or less success. There are no absolutes here. There's no perfection here. The idea of The Cabin is ‘let's be in this space and let's spend time with the trees. Let's spend time with the sunshine. Let's spend time with the wood stove. Let's spend time with the wildflowers. Let's spend time, just together, no questions asked.’ 

I think that having a cottage is a beautiful thing. I think people are blessed to have a cottage if they can afford it and they can have the experience. I think that my experience of spending time at cottages and with people is that it is a transformation. It is a sense of connection to something else. It's guarded. It's careful. It has to be managed to be unthreatening, to the experience of stability and control.

So you've got two things happening at the same time. One is… I can drive to the cottage, we can get there, we can flip the switch, we've got power and we've got drinking water. We are here to decompress. We are here for the fresh air. We are here for sunlight and the cold chill on our skin and the exhilaration of experiencing that ‘out there it's a beautiful world’. And you can get close to it, but it's a little bit like being in a zoo, a pod inside of the zoo. So, you go to your pod inside the nature zone, but you don't really get outside of your pod.

There's no wall. There's no gated fence. There's no chain link fence. It's an invisible barrier. You're experiencing nature as if in a zoo. You need it, you want it, it's delightful, but you're afraid of it. There's very, very few people who walk across that invisible boundary. A cottage is a wealth asset where you recreate. You enjoy the properties of the material wealth of our contemporary industrialized society. Some call it post-industrialization, but that really just means that all the industry has moved somewhere else and we've benefitted even further from that… the dirtiness is somewhere else. So a cottage is a place of recreation, reinvigoration, immediately associated with the urban existence, and it's a perk.

This is the whole idea around The Cabin. Let's experience this as something other than our urban experience. And maybe we can learn something and maybe we'll carry it into other parts of our life. I don't have an answer to that. There is no specific answer. But it is a very deliberate, intentional creation of an opportunity to be other than what we think we know is right in the urban world.”

BM: So how does the exercise work? I mean how does living and experiencing out there actually happen?

“It's an experiment… an effort to try. So drinking water? Yeah, we have a submersible pump in a drilled well. Takes a fair bit of energy to drill the well… that's fairly permanent actually. Once you drill that well, it's going to be around for a long time. It's a fairly sustainable practice in its own right. The submersible pump? Well, that's a pretty high level of technology… plastics for pipes, electricity to run it. OK… that's what that is… that's just part of that. Where do we start to compromise? Where do we start to experiment? Well, the electricity to pump that water… solar. So The Cabin is 100% off grid. And this is a modest, high-quality, solar power system.  4 megawatts, I think, is what it's called. It's not a lot. It can run a wood saw, like a table saw or a skill saw, it can run an electric drill. It can, of course, play your music. So yeah, it can support a couple of speakers that are powered. Not a refrigerator, not a microwave, not an electric stove, not a washing machine or a dishwasher.”

BM: We do have a stove, an oven, and a fridge. What powers those?

“Propane. Light petroleum, natural gas, liquefied natural gas. It's fossil fuel. [...] If you get a tank filled with light petroleum, liquid petroleum, natural gas, propane… it's very stable. It will keep 3-4 or 5 years and it's still good… it still burns well, it burns cleanly. Lots of other petroleum products are not stable. [...] So we have two 400 kilogram tanks for petroleum gas. They supply cooking, and they operate the refrigerator based on a passive heat transfer system, and a backup propane heater for the cabin in wintertime.

Now when it comes to cooking, it's a very efficient use of gas. It's just producing heat. Yes, it releases some carbon into the atmosphere, it's imperfect in that regard, but electricity, at some source, is produced by sending carbon into the atmosphere too. I tell you, if you're on the grid, you're pumping the CO2 into the air somewhere, you know, it may not be at your house.”

BM: Well we burn wood too, to heat The Cabin. That produces CO2. How does that play into your relationship with the forest and the cycles of life?

“We have our own supply of wood and it's a natural harvest of wood. Trees are naturally gonna die and they're gonna decompose. And when they decompose with our composters… mushrooms and insects and bacteria and stuff… they produce carbon dioxide. Burn a tree for heat, I produce carbon dioxide. It's the same carbon dioxide, just the process is different.

I don't feel bad at all about burning wood. I do think a lot about how to burn wood more and more efficiently, so that I can be part of the forest without degrading the forest. How can I have those relationships with those trees where that tree is ready to come down and I put a little bit of tobacco there or give it a little prayer and I say, ‘Tree, I'm going to bring you down now, I'm going to use you for heat.’ ”

BM: Winter poses some challenges here. It gets extremely cold. The plumbing doesn’t function in the winter. How do we get around those obstacles?

“First off, imagine the spaces you need to live in and do stuff in. Imagine your sources of energy for staying warm. What spaces need to be warm and how do you provide the energy to those spaces to keep them warm? One, of course, is clothing. Another is that if the living space in the daytime is for a single person or two people, you can literally drape off the kitchen at The Cabin, which is 300 square feet. You can do a lot in that space. Apart from eating and stuff like that, you can sit, think, read books, play games, all kinds of stuff. With a drape and the wood stove, like, holy it's T-shirt weather in there very quickly.

You may have more friends or more people staying and you just push that drape over to the staircase, which goes up to the upper part of The Cabin, and then the heat transfers into another 500 square feet of space. That's almost 800 square feet of living space that you're trying to keep warm with the wood stove. OK, but you've covered the staircase so that the heat doesn't transfer up to the upstairs. 

Then when you're going upstairs? What are you going to do up there? You’re sleeping. Well, did you eat well? Body energy, blankets, good quality down or thick insulated covers and quite frankly you don't need a lot of heat to sleep well because the energy from your body, provided that you have the technology to… “technology”… I’m just talking about blankets and comforters… you insulate yourself. Wear a hat, put some socks on, use that “technology” and the energy supply is you… it's food. It's huge! Even downstairs with the wood stove, if you’re a little chilly, put on a sweater. You know, it's all just insulation.”

BM: What about getting water?

“So we have a melt snow system for about four months at The Cabin. Drinking water, it tastes a little bit different, but it falls from the sky so it's pretty clean. And [it’s good for] washing dishes and washing yourself in the wintertime. We call this, in our society… we call it a three-season cabin.”

BM: I guess lastly let’s talk about waste. The outhouse, the septic tank. What’s that system?

”For the most part, the exercise at The Cabin [is to] use the outhouse, and this outhouse is very specifically designed, that when you poop, your poop falls on the ground. In other words, the outhouse is cantilevered over a space. The poop lands in an aerobic environment, air, bacteria… air can get there, surface worms, soil type organisms, and bacteria can all get there, to create good-smelling waste. And we blend with that with ashes from the wood stove, not to control the smell, but we blend it as a superb concentration of nutrients. That, then, has to be very carefully distributed (thinly because it’s strong) over the micro gardens and the excess… “whooshk” right out into the forest. [...]

You want an oxygen-based aerobic environment for digestion of human waste. It's the healthy stuff. If you bury it deep and put it in, submerge it in water, like the classic septic system or contemporary urban sewage management systems, instead of pumping water up out of the ground to move the waste and hide it away in a septic tank, if you use the outhouse instead, all the energy in the world is there to digest and make something good of the human waste for free.

Free energy. It's beautiful to think of that, and [that] we can begin to change the world that way. If we start thinking about these things, then we are in the process of changing this world in that way… some of us. And like I said, The Cabin is an experiment… it's a way to learn. It's not an absolute rejection of modern society or anything… it's just like, ‘Hey, I've got all these questions about society and how we live in the world and stuff like that. Well, I'm gonna give it a shot.’ “

BM: Do you have any concluding thoughts? What would you say to someone who wants to make their own off grid space? Do you have any advice or words of wisdom?

“It's a conversation, isn't it? And I'm honoured to be part of the conversation, trying to figure out what we're doing here. And The Cabin is part of that and we're not alone. There's other folks trying to figure it out too. Anybody who's trying to make a difference in this world has to understand that they're alone and you have to come to terms with loneliness… and understand that that's a healthy part of being. And the flip side of that is that by making the effort to discover and explore, by keeping the door open, you'll discover there's a lot of other people trying to do it too, and you're not alone and [you’ll] discover your friends. There's a lot of them out there. Just give it a shot.

It's hard work. Ask for help. Share your experience. Yeah, ask for help and share your experience and give it a shot. You don't have to be successful… you just have to try. 

There’s many ways… many ways to have the conversation, yeah.

For all the doom and gloom out there, there are also really cool people out there too, just trying to make a difference.”

Inside Climate Chaos: Surviving B.C.’s Forest Fires

The following are excerpts of a recorded conversation with a Water Docs supporter about their experience surviving the recent B.C. forest fires. They live near Lytton, B.C. and have asked to remain anonymous. The excerpts have been edited for clarity and length.

I'm living on the front lines of this climate crisis. I think a lot of people living in a city can't really comprehend what I just went through. It's distant for people. I grew up in Toronto, born and raised, and have lived in cities for the majority of my life but I've been here for 18 years now. In that time, what I've seen happen to what was a relatively intact ecosystem when I first moved here, is devastating. And then to experience what I experienced last summer has given me post traumatic stress.

There were fires all around and every single day that I woke up, I went online to see what the fires were doing and to see if I had a route out or did I have a way to evacuate or not? I went outside at one point to water my garden to try and save my plants but with the heat and the UV, my plants turned black. Basically, they cooked. And when I went outside to water, I'll never forget this one, I was outside for around seven minutes and I got heatstroke. It was around 50 degrees outside. My thermometer broke once it reached its maximum, 50 degrees Celsius, so I couldn’t even read it. I felt sick for the rest of the day.

You are affected by the heat but also by the lack of oxygen in the smoke and by the realisation that everything you have is potentially gone, including your own life. We were surrounded by fires to the south, to the north, and to the east… and there's no way out to the west. So to be aware every day that my life was in danger, my home was in danger, my friends were in danger and then trying to make choices. All the while you're breathing smoke and burning up and we were all preparing to evacuate at the same time. So I'm looking at everything in my home and asking myself what really matters? What do I need to do here to prepare myself to run? And what do I want to take with me out of everything that I have from my entire life at that point? I was 49, and my heirlooms and my art and my precious little things… what should I pack up? If I'm evacuating through a forest fire, what do I need to have to prepare myself to fight for my life? The stress was just beyond what I think most people can actually imagine.

We had fires two years in a row. I've experienced a lot of them. The first was 2009. If one lives out west in Canada, it's a reality. But the intensity of that reality has only grown since my first forest fire experience. Now it’s just more and more intense and more and more of a reality. The fires happened, and then the floods happened and then we had avalanches and mudslides, all deadly realities, all in one year.

Anybody who wants to deny that climate chaos is real, is just an idiot, as far as I'm concerned. And anybody who feels comfortable where they are, and thinks they're immune to it… just wait… just wait. It'll hit and it's going to affect everyone. If you think you're untouchable in places like Toronto, you're wrong.

When I moved here, it fundamentally changed who I am. To go from a city to live in a wilderness, it's been a beautiful experience for me and it's also changed me forever. To live among these ancient trees, among all these other entities, who are being decimated because of what human beings are doing? Now it's come down to how I am being decimated by what we human beings are doing. I'm lucky just to be alive.

Milenyo: When the Night Came Early

A Personal Story of Climate Change by Zosimo Gamba

The whole morning was bright and sunny. Sorsogon City in southern Luzon, Philippines was abuzz with the usual city-life activities. Jeepneys plying the streets were overflowing with passengers coming from and going to the outlying towns. The skies were covered with high, off-white clouds; the heat of the sun enveloping the city made my skin clammy. The wind had stopped but I felt the cool air under the single tree in the pocket garden on my way out of my nephew’s boarding house.

The jeepney terminal was crowded with passengers. There was a radio blaring nearby, its anchor made everyone frantic—the typhoon was on its way and predicted to make landfall right smack into the city. It was 2:00 in the afternoon when I managed to get a ride—my destination, 45 kilometers away and a 50-minute ride. 10 minutes out of the city, it was calm; the grazing cows in the fields of the Bureau of Animal Industry went about their business; the leaves of the huge acacia trees that lined the fences had become still. Across the road, the little brook fronting an empty building continued its silent flow into the rice paddies nearby. The wind had started to blow gently and then it would pause, like the breath of a sleeping child. Everyone inside the jeepney was silent, their minds perhaps preoccupied with fear, anxious about what was coming.

After 12 miles of travel, we turned at the crossroad where the highway forked into two. The skies were beginning to darken. When the road opened up into a clear portion of the highway a police patrol car flagged us down. A big branch of a lone acacia tree had fallen across the road, closing it off to traffic. In front of us were about five other vehicles being asked to turn around. The wind had stopped now and it had begun to drizzle. After another 15 minutes of travel back into the city, our driver stopped and parked our jeepney under a mango tree and he asked all 12 passengers to come with him. A little farther away from the parked jeepney was his home, small but concrete. The living room could not accommodate us all, so the men were obliged to stand about on the cramped porch. The wind began to blow again and this time it was stronger; the mango trees around the house were making rattling noises. A surge of rain would come with each gust of the wind. The lady of the house generously served us all coffee. We all thought the typhoon had arrived and there was no way that the rain would ever stop, but after about half an hour, the afternoon brightened. The mango trees stood still again and the wind and rain had stopped. Most of us decided to leave the house then and we bid farewell to the lady of the house and the driver—his jeepney would just have to stay put for the day. He was very generous though and did not even collect our fares.

We all started to hike back to the city which was about seven miles away. On the road pedestrians were coming into and out of the direction of the city. Empty vehicles turned around and took as many passengers as they could. A white Ford Fiera stopped in front of our group. It was redesigned into a delivery vehicle so there were no seats anymore, only wooden boxes. Eight of us hopped in and made ourselves comfortable on the boxes. A niece of mine, who happened to be travelling that day and was in the same jeepney I took, was with me. The two of us settled ourselves on the spare tire. The Ford moved slowly… more cars ahead of us were snaking along slowly too. The night had come early and quickly and at 4:00 pm it suddenly became dark. A very strong wind blew and shook the Ford. The ladies screamed. We had stopped, stuck in that space on the highway beside the Bureau of Animal Industry. Our driver sighed and then cursed. With him by the wheel was a young male student who attempted to get out of the car but the driver pulled him back in. We were in front of an empty building and a single tall tree growing beside the highway was a mere 20 yards away from us.

The rains started coming in with the wind and with the power and ferocity of an elephant, both wind and rain attacked and battered us from the left. The Ford was like a hammock in the middle of the road, buffeted by the storm, with the seven of us huddled inside. We had to make sure our weight was evenly balanced. My niece and I were in the middle where the spare tire lay and the two men who were the heaviest stationed themselves on the left, while the three ladies were on the right. The heavy rain was so dense that it suddenly blocked out any available light at all and the sliding PVC windows began to whistle, as though making signals, because they were being pushed so hard by the wind. We all started to get soaked from the rain invading through the windows.

The ladies began to pray aloud and sing praises, to which we all joined in. An explosion of both rain and wind came wailing through our makeshift ark and we felt the Ford tilt to the right. This was followed by another strong surge and another and another. Some may have escaped from their cars and taken shelter in the empty building as I could see some light coming from that direction. In a slight flicker of the light, I saw that the little brook had transformed into a lake. My niece had huddled behind my back and we were both drenched through and so was whatever baggage we had with us. She was asking my forgiveness for whatever she may have done to me, so I asked her to simply join in with the prayers and the singing.

Suddenly, a roaring sound, like rushing water from a dam, overwhelmed our senses and our Ford was pushed even further sideways. I was afraid we would slide into the lake. The PVC windows were tearing and the two men attempted to hold them until they simply gave up. The rain was now freely pummelling us and we were completely flooded inside. Huddling together, shivering and silently praying now as the Ford helplessly swayed in any direction the whims of the angry wind decided to send us. Beside the terrible howling of the wind, we also heard the sound of a breaking tree falling into the water.

We remained in that state for more than five hours—it was a very long afternoon. At around 10:00 pm, we felt that the Ford had become steady once again. We noticed that all around us it was quiet and still with no movement whatsoever. We gingerly came out of the Ford and others started coming out of their vehicles too. The wind would hiss now and then, gently kissing our faces, as though coming back to ask forgiveness and say goodbye.

Then, when dawn was breaking, I left my niece, thanked the driver and the group of strangers (now more like extended family) and walked back toward the city. Ahead of our Ford there were lines of vehicles facing in every direction, some perhaps swerving to avoid the onslaught of the strong winds. I heard cries of children in a bus that had come from Manila. The nose of the bus was almost against the concrete fence, while its tail consumed half of the road. A few inches away was a big trunk of an acacia tree that had fallen sometime during the night. Hydro poles were laid down every 15 meters perhaps, like fallen pencils spread about on the floor, and their power cables strewn everywhere… over the roof of the bus, all about the acacia trees, under the huge tree by the empty building, and even farther into the city, enveloping houses like spiders’ webs.

The Philippine National Red Cross reported that Sorsogon Province was badly hit, with 5,427 houses completely destroyed and another 3,005 damaged. According to PAGASA, Typhoon Milenyo sustained a wind of 230-240 kilometers per hour, though the forecast had only predicted 150-180 kilometers per hour near the centre. Damage to the entire province was initially placed at P2.23 billion.

Some Stroke of Serendipity

Call it a fortunate stroke of serendipity or whatever, it is a once-in-a-lifetime experience to meet a complete nature photographer like Ely Teehankee, a bird photographer to be more exact.

The first meeting itself was surreal. One thin rain-curtained evening in an open but not so well-lit farmhouse with one wooden post partly hiding him, his back was turned when I ascended the two steps to his abode. The faint shadow created by the post did not reveal that he was already tucking in to his early dinner. It was quite apparent the man was starving. Philip, Ely’s sponsor and tour co-ordinator, was demonstrating some actions of the hectic day I came to presume. He stood some feet away, very generously not partaking in the dinner.

Glowing, like the sudden sparks of embers when steam drips from a broiling tilapia wrapped in banana leaf, is exactly how Ely looks when describing his feats and fits of the day. He always has precise adjectives to describe and paint his subjects, all the while maneuvering his laptop to show me his bird conquests. The main subject today: a male Trogon; the site: the thick vegetation surrounding the 0.16 km2 volcanic Lake Bulusan; the sky: overcast and/or showering; the lighting: sometimes OK, sometimes not. One single camera position would register a hundred shots of the subject. On the screen they were almost the same frames all throughout. From these he has to select and keep in ‘File 2’ while others are dragged into ‘File 3’. All the rest go into the trash bin.

The next day I decided to relish my packed lunch with Ely at the lake. Beyond the veranda where we were seated, Ely’s signature tripod-mounted Canon rested on the shady rim of the lake’s brick parking area. Sande, Ely’s assistant, hovered around as though doing a flamenco—gliding the camera to this and that position—a rare pair of dancers. With the sun now at position 11, the trees and thick vegetation above bathed the dancers in soft light. It was the wind that was unkind, oscillating and gyrating to some crazy music.

It had been raining the past few days. The photographer in Ely was heartbroken. I was feeling the same. April to June are summer months as I remember from childhood. It’s the perfect time to take along your slingshot and roam the forests. Water raged everywhere you headed; where you wanted to swim, rivers always rose to the occasion. And the wind was soft and endearing, singing lullabies that easily sent you to slumberland. This day in April was different. Even the water in the lake had receded and the wind had simply gone crazy.

Ely and I were into some conversation when Sande waved at us. It was signal for Ely that the subject had arrived. He abruptly left a newly opened turones de pili half bitten. I also left the table and tiptoed over to where Ely was readying the camera. Sande pointed the subject out to me. I followed the direction of her pointing finger with my naked eye. Not subject but subjects. Two live creatures were cavorting in the forest. Both were quick in their movements, darting from this tree to that vine, from the lower part of the vegetation to the top of the trees where the wind was.

I saw the Trogon first because of his bright lovely colors. The flaming breast was easily discernible. Even with the quick movement of the head, the colors would always give him away. He was regal at whatever angle he stood… simply majestic. Ely and Sande followed him wherever he darted.

The Malkoha was more wild. It moved very fast and burrowed into the thick vegetation. Although flittingly, I caught sight of some features of the long black tail. When it fanned out I saw white - either it was just a streak across it or a piping at its hemline. When it perched sideways and looked down, a red crown became visible.

Back in the farmhouse when evening came, Ely was ecstatic over his shots of the male Trogon. They were more prominent, and when he magnified the photos, he showed me what a perfect shot is made of. The beak had a color gradation, which at first, he said, he himself had not observed, and the fine whiskers turned into bristles at an angle. The breast was so velvety smooth and without any visible dent, except one that maybe a sharp photo spectator could see, created by a whiff of wind. A perfect shot should have no obstruction what-so-ever and it seems this only happens when you’re lucky.

I might have received a more perfect tutorial in bird photography had Sir Ely stayed longer at the bee farm, despite the irregular climate conditions. Nevertheless, a stroke of serendipity often comes along in a spate of luck… much like taking a perfect shot.

WRITTEN BY ZOSIMO GAMBA

Through-line: Water Stories

As a kid, I had an irrational fear of encountering a shark in the deep end of my parent’s swimming pool. Water splashed as I swam, the taste of chlorine metallic on my tongue. The shark in the deep end was the provenance of a b-monster movie, the kind we may have rented some weekend at the Blockbuster down the road. I walked from that old house to the now extinct video store with my family at dusk. The summer breeze cooled and the sky was orange and purple as the sun crept away. Those were my favourite nights because there would be films and popcorn and for a few hours, everyone would be content. Other times my brother and I, and the family dog, played in the vast backyard enclosed by trees. Almost everything from then is gone now, even the house is torn down. I wonder if they kept the pool, and if they did, I wonder if the shark still lives in the deep end in that kind of over-imaginative mind only a child could have, the one that still kind of believes in magic. 

A minke whale, this creature of the sea unimagined, broke through the surface of the Atlantic Ocean. The whale twisted and turned and crashed backward lazily into the water. The catamaran boat from which we watched bobbed along the waves. A sheet of water, tinged gold by the midday sun, rained over me. Other whales arrived, spiraling and flying in an aquatic ballet in the Bay of Fundy. Later I walked Hopewell Cape at low tide. I was dwarfed by unreal jagged rock towers. By nightfall those towers would barely be visible as the highest tides in the world would pour in five stories high and swallow them whole. I explored Canada’s eastern coast the summer after my first year of university. Across New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, and Prince Edward Island I saw yawning plateaus of forestry, majestic jagged cliffs, and red earth on Cavendish Beach that could easily pass for Mars. I travelled east in the wake of a personal tragedy, but closer to nature than ever before, the sorrow shrunk, the cold feeling warmed in the embrace of natural wonder.  

Covering a protest against a local quarry expansion was my first assignment as a journalist. Speakers at the event shouted to be heard over the roar of aggregate-carrying trucks travelling to the worksite. A folk singer performed a song she wrote fifteen years earlier in protest of the same expansion proposal tabled again then. I spoke to the troubadour about fighting the same fight again and again and she cited vigilance. Water and climate are a through-line, whether you mean for them to be or not. Some fight for them, some work against them, sometimes they are the quiet wonders that colour our every day. 

One day I’ll live on Canada’s east coast. I’ll sip steaming coffee in a windswept cafe. The air tastes fresher by the sea. I want to feel the spray of salt water on a promenade. I’ll walk rolling hills and smell the sweet pines of the forest, and I’ll think about an old house with a yawning backyard where an enclosure of trees felt like a forest. And it won’t be that painful kind of nostalgia because in many ways I’ll be there again. On quiet days I’ll traverse a cliff face and gaze upon the ocean. So much of the ocean is unexplored, there is a wonder in that. It almost feels like magic. 

WRITTEN BY RYAN O’DOWD

W is for Water or War

In a not-so-distant future water may become an issue of war. Even now conflicts regarding water use are rife. An example close to home for me is the main spring situated at the very heart of the village in San Roque, Bulusan, in the Province of Sorsogon, Philippines, which is a common aquifer. Our small community of 2,852 gets its water supply from this same spring. The village catchment system is a reservoir with big pipes that feed our homes and businesses.

Three lot owners who also use the water are immediately in the mouth of this water source. The owners are an older couple who had purchased the contiguous lots from the original owner; the stingless bee farm east of the first lot owner where I work; and another older lady, whose property is further away from the water source. The death of one partner in the older couple made the case worse as the documents he left behind were problematic. Before his death, however, the bee farm was able to purchase part of the spring, so we were free to get water from the source. It is the older lady lot owner who was left without access to the water source. In the southern part of her property though is an ancient tree and under its roots spring water flows out, but only in small volumes. Outflow from the catchment systems in the main spring goes into a creek that becomes a river to irrigate rice paddies downstream.

The challenge for us in figuring out access to abundant clean spring water is how to maximize use of the water that goes into the property. The widow laid a couple of pipes from the source to fill a large swimming pool. The second older lady had to make do with the small volume of her spring water to also fill a large swimming pool, and a fishpond. The bee farm built its own catchment box at the source that ran into a huge concrete reservoir in the uppermost part of the property.  We use this water for our kitchens, function halls and rooms. Part of the large volume of unused water that flows out into the nearby creek is diverted into the farm lots. This we use partly to make a small pool with rocks and pebbles along its outlet for the bees to perch on while gathering water for their hives and partly to run into the ornamental fishponds of tilapia, gourami, and koi… essentially starting from the small pond down to a bigger pond and into a much bigger, final pond.

One line of the water pipes from the reservoir goes into smaller fishponds inside a wide-open function hall that helps create a cooler ventilation. The smaller ponds, also with little rocks and stones, are created for tilapia and koi. We installed a concrete and stone divider-wall with water cascading from its top into the small ponds. The wall has accumulated moss which feed a kind of freshwater mollusk (the French escargot or snail) which we cook and eat — it’s a local home recipe of old.

How I wish we could give some of our water to those who have need of it. But since we cannot, or if ever we had the capacity it would entail a lot of trouble perhaps, our utmost responsibility is to make most use of it and not waste it. W is for Waste-no-Water.

WRITTEN BY ZOSIMO GAMBA

Tales from Bulusan Lake: Philippines

When I was in grade school a provincial yellow bus called CAL Transit plied our village roads. It had about six to eight rows of wooden slat seats with wooden backrests. You get on the bus and step into your choice of the row with vacant seats. I always chose the single seater to the left of the bus driver. On his right was a two-seater.

From the main highway, the road to the Bulusan Volcano Natural Park was uphill. The bus would snake through what seemed like a tunnel of trees, their huge branches holding hands and embracing over our heads and their sturdy trunks covered with gnarled vines. Then the bus stops to breathe at the end of the road which is on a promontory. Here a wide expanse of the earth appears and leaves you breathless. Being seated at the driver’s left, I was the first to savor it as the bus slightly swerved to the right before going full stop. It was a massive wall of dense forest in different hues of green and some yellow and brown, mirrored in a shimmering calm wide lake. That was my first memory of the lake. 

A couple of years later I would come on weekends with a group of youngsters like me to collect soda caps with freebies under their corks thrown away by bus loads of Japanese and Chinese tourists who frequented the natural park. Much later, during dark evenings my uncle had us in tow to go fishing. Oh how abundant they were—the Nilotica or Nile tilapia. Without replacing the bait, I could tackle three to four tilapia straight in a row!

There was this floating house on the lake during our Boy Scouts camping when I was in 6th grade. It was a bamboo raft built with a roofed cubicle for shade when it rained. It was moored a few meters away from the short wooden wharf below the lake’s log cabin. It could be pulled out into the inner lake by a boat.

I may have been the smallest in our troop but the seven-meter distance from the wharf to the bamboo raft was such a huge hurdle to swim that it was not just challenging for me, but for my  Scout Master as well. Later our Master would recall that he almost drowned during our maneuver as my hands were like octopus tentacles on his head all throughout the ordeal.

I was profuse with sorrow when he passed. I was working in the local municipal tourism office where the lake was our flagship tourism product. It has become very interesting for me to note that this Bulusan Lake, nestled in a forest some 400 meters above sea level, has no visible inlet and outlet. At the lake’s rim on the eastern side, however, regurgitating sounds can be heard up and down the loose boulders and rocks. A few kilometers below are creeks and streams that form into Bayogin falls and fill much of the Bulusan River.

I have come to dearly love the lake. Once upon a time in this lake someone almost gave his life to save another—mine.

WRITTEN BY ZOSIMO GAMBA

Tainted Water

Last fall, I found myself in the kitchen of a small home in the Oneida Nation of the Thames First Nation listening to a middle-aged Iroquois woman weep. She was crying out of fear for her eight grandchildren. But this wasn’t a fear any grandmother should have. It wasn’t of her grandchildren crossing the road without looking or if they were getting picked on at school. She was crying because she was scared that her grandchildren might drink her tap water.

I was in Jennifer George’s kitchen that day working on a story I was helping write in partnership with Ryerson University, the Toronto Star and Concordia University’s Institute for Investigative Journalism. This was one story in the dozens that were published as part of the Star’s Tainted Water series that looked at the quality of Canada’s drinking water.

Up to that point, I had spent most of my time reviewing data about boil water advisories in First Nations communities in Ontario. Looking at spreadsheet after spreadsheet I began to clearly understand just how severely the federal government has failed to provide First Nations people in this country with potable water. On paper, the picture was grim. But it didn’t come close to how grim it felt standing in Jennifer’s kitchen as she wept.

Jennifer lives on the border of her First Nations community. When you look out her front window, you can see Southwold, a small, non-indigenous township south of London, Ont. More specifically, you can see a farmhouse. That farmhouse, just a few hundred feet from Jennifer's front door, enjoys clean, drinkable water while she’s left to rely on large jugs of store bought water.

Standing there in Jennifer’s kitchen, is a moment I will remember forever. It’s the only time I’ve ever been in the midst of inequality so stark I still struggle to talk about it. 

When I saw Ottawa’s announcement last week that they will miss their deadline to lift all boil water advisories by 2021, I thought of Jennifer and her grandchildren. And while Oneida doesn’t currently have an advisory, Jennifer and her family are emblematic of the many First Nations families and communities across this country that still cannot drink their tap water.

WRITTEN BY BEN HARGREAVES

Read Jennifer’s story

Read more from the Tainted Water series 

Control

I wrote this some time ago, at the start of a life-long journey to explore the interconnectedness of humans and nature. I adopt the deep ecological view that there is intrinsic value in nature despite its usefulness to humans to control and exploit. ‘Control’ is a concrete poem, giving the visual appearance of a wave, as inspired by Alan Watts’ philosophy: “You and I are all as much continuous with the physical universe as a wave is continuous with the ocean.”  Neither humans nor nature exist independently of each other. Thus, to ensure human longevity, it is imperative to nurture nature.

Always we salute a human able to survive the havoc of illness inflicted by one’s own body. Following this rule of victory then, should we not celebrate the resilience of a planet able not only to withstand, but also recover constantly from problems inflicted upon it by the parts within?  We trust our organs and we trust life to know how to work. We expect our organs to stand against the hardships of sickness and its imposed damage. So too, I presume, the Earth trusted her organs; trusted the humans, the animals, the natural environment, to know how to work together to remain healthy. As the white blood cells defend against foreign substances and infection, so too do the tidal waves try to wash away, and the blasts of wind try to blow away, the illness that burns within and upon Earth. We tremble at the Earth’s self-cleansing methods yet we do not tremble at the hit of the axe on the tree trunk nor the slabbing of the concrete. We do not tremble enough when we hear that the other humans down South do not have the same water to drink that we enjoy abundantly. We do not tremble enough at the stories of the companies we gave unfounded power to, steal Earth’s resources, package them neatly and sell them back to us… the fruits of our own home.

My relationship with water continues to evolve. I remember feeling fearful of water, as the ocean, in its grandeur and enveloping power. When I was in my teens, I lost a friend when I lived on a Caribbean island during a ruthless hurricane that triggered landslides. Under the power of the water, part of a mountain came crashing down and swept away a lovely family of 5, with their home and art studio… may they Rest in Peace. I was convinced that water was unpredictable and ravaging, and if we cannot control it, we must fear it. But what the community taught me in the aftermath of that hurricane is that they always respected the water in all its forms because it gave them as much life as it took from them. That is an unwavering belief in the balance of life and an understanding that you must respect nature as it nurtures you. As I grew older, learnt more and travelled more, I realized my fear was misplaced. I will never forget what the water took away that day, but every day I can also see it giving back. I always stand in awe of water in all its forms. When you contemplate the ways in which water provides and sustains life, you understand that instead of trying to control it, we must work with it. Some facts to ponder: up to 60% of the adult human body is water; water covers about 71% of the earth's surface; and more than 3.5 billion people depend on the ocean for their primary source of food. So, water is in us, feeds us and surrounds us. If we do not protect our water, we do not protect our future. This is why I advocate that we respect water, share water and stop wasting it.

WRITTEN BY MAXIME MATTHEW

Aquamour: The Story

July 1982, a young Italian girl dives for the 8th time from a rock of the Enfola beach in the crystal clear water of Elba, the protected island of the Tuscan archipelago. To catch her breath she decides to lie on the surface. Enchanted, she lets herself get carried by this sea with which she has the sense of oneness. This feeling will stay with her for ever.

At the same time, a few miles away from there, on the Corsican beach of Propriano, a young Breton clings to the wishbone of his Dufour windsurf and manages, for the first time after 40 unsuccessful attempts, to move a few meters with the only help of the wind.

The thrill of the ride will stay with him for ever. 

That same day of July ‘82, when the young Italian girl returns from the beach to the family home, there is no more tap water. The water reserve has been used up by the thousands of tourists. Four years spent in the very deserted Kuwait have accustomed her to cope with this constraint. But this is the first time she has to fetch the precious resource at the fountain of the neighbouring village.

It's time for our young Breton to go back home to continue his holidays at the Val André, a Breton seaside resort on the bay of Saint-Brieuc, where his family meets every summer. A preserved coast where he will be able to pursue his dream of becoming a windsurfer. Let's hope that a new Amoco Cadiz - which, four years after having triggered one of the greatest ecological disaster, continues to leave its damaging mark on the Breton coast - will never occur again to devastate the precious water!

Much later, in the mid-2000s, after having crossed different life experiences, they met in Paris. Barbara and Stephane would finally drift to the same beach after she had experienced a tsunami named divorce and he, the loss of his father. They cling to one another as one clings to a life buoy. Yet during all these years and storms, the feelings and thrills they experienced with water in their youth remain intact.

Their passion for water and its regenerative power strengthen their bonds and bring them closer together.

Together they visit the Greek island of Santorini. They discover a unique blue water but also the sad effects of the human footprint. Many plastic wastes disfigure the beach and the quiet sea. With no hesitation, they collect all of them under the curious eye of the tourists and then go for a swim with the nice feeling of having restored -though in a short-lived way- the beauty of the sea. An episode that, unfortunately, would repeat again on other shores, other rivers ... but which would awake in them a need to act!

More recently in Paris, another trigger was when they went to watch the documentary ‘Demain le film’ (which means ‘tomorrow, the film’ ) directed by Cyril Dion.

The film portraits a series of responsible and sustainable initiatives run by regular citizens all over the world, in the fields of agriculture, economy, education, society etc… 

At the end of the film there was a spontaneous standing ovation in the cinema (and yet the film director was not there), people applauded for 10 minutes with no break and had a positive and engaging feeling as if they were and could be part of this movement. It gave them hope that each and everyone of us can contribute positively to the change.

This is when the Aquamour project was born: to love water is to love life, taking care of it is vital, let's move! 

Stéphane & Barbara decided to go around the world in search of encouraging stories and images on water to call for action, restore hope and love.

‘Now is time to do something positive for the planet and for the children!’

What is Aquamour?

Some responsible people act around the planet and yet they are not very visible.

We wish to highlight these people in different parts of the world, to show through concrete and sustainable initiatives, that every citizen of the world can have a positive impact for the preservation of water. 

We aim to raise awareness of this vital issue among the general public, and in particular the young people, by showing the beauty and benefits of water as well as by highlighting the actions in favor of its preservation.

We started our round the world trip for the protection of water in all its forms, on June 2019, we have posted photos and videos of interviews, on Instagram and Facebook with the name of:  Aquamour20  

We had to come back from our trip earlier, in April 2020, due to the pandemic, and we are now working on a long film to share the water stories, and also on a water photo exhibition.

3 main focuses: Ecology, Health and Art. Whether they are researchers, small fishermen, volunteers committed to its preservation, advocate of the benefits of water on body and mind, artists or others, whatever their scope of their actions, their message or their creations, these  ‘aqua-heroes' will show us the way to save water from human madness. 

We are looking forward to sharing all these stories with you! Here is our trailer:

Sending many Water Blessings to all of you with Love.

WRITTEN BY BARBARA & STEPHANE

Water: Master of Transmutation

Water is a master of transmutation. It is both the wild, and the peace.

I’m beginning to consider being soft, a great strength. And I didn’t used to think this way. As an actor I’ve learned to work hard and develop a resilient ‘thick skin’ in response to criticism and rejection; and have found pride in the prairie grit and determination that has largely gotten me through.  But amidst it all, there’s always been this nagging voice of ‘should’ … one that comes in dark quiet moments and sleepless nights.  It’s a desire and a sense that I should be something—or somewhere—that I’m not. Maybe it’s part of why I became an actor in the first place: this voice becoming a gentle revealer of the metamorphosis I was seeking. To become something I wasn’t, but could be. To wade around in the mind and heart of a completely new person, a completely new way of being; and by proxy revealing a fresh way to see the world.

Like water, I’ve been feeling into these borders, these perimeters and boundaries to find the edge of my container. It’s become a learned skill and rewarding, expansive work.

As an awkward tween with jungle-gym bruises and a windswept bowl cut, I’d swim in northern Saskatchewan lakes and feel FREE. Container-less. My twiggy body didn’t feel safe in dance, gym class or change rooms, but it felt at home in the Hanging Heart lakes of Waskesiu. My grandparents cultivated a respect for Mother Earth, for our rivers and lakes… and shared it with us like a prayer.  I bowed to nature; I listened to my grandma descant with the loons, announcing her presence in a high confident warble. I cast fishing lines into the lake’s reedy depths. I understood the cycle of life, and simultaneously grappled with the part I played in it. Somehow this love of lakes became a love of oceans, and eventually—ocean animals.

Before I wanted to be an actor, I wanted to be a marine biologist. Funny, considering—as a person growing up in the middle of Canada’s prairies—I’m not sure which was the more unlikely career path. My childhood was spent either curled in a warm corner reading about dolphins, or exuberantly performing self-adapted plays and filming videos in the basement.  In my adult life I have sought out humpback whales, chased sea turtles, ran straight and fearless into the briny sea. And simultaneously, onto one of the largest stages in the country. I chose acting, but my love of water has prevailed and always kept me safe.

So why? What is the lesson, and what is the draw?

When I was 23 I got a tattoo that crests over my right hipbone. Now a cultural icon – The Great Wave off Kanagawa is a daily reminder of the immense power that nature inherently wields. This giant wave looms over the tiny, man-made yellow boats like a gargantuan sea-monster. It holds for me a message – an ocean can be glass, it can be still. But it can also be a great wave and a tsunami. 

Nayyirah Waheed wrote:
you do not have to be a fire
for
every mountain blocking you.
you could be water
and
soft river your way to freedom
too.
--options

If you look closely at the Great Wave… far off in the distance, beyond the water and at the very center of the print, is Mount Fuji. Standing sentient, reminding us of something to reach for, to preserve & fight for, and even to believe in.  You can storm your way there, or you can be the soft river. The important thing is to keep going. For the love of our natural world, our waterways and ancient teachers… we have to keep going. 

And, I would add – in moments of civil injustice, fear and racism – you could be the tsunami, too.

Water can do that.

WRITTEN BY JONELLE GUNDERSON

Six Mile Lake

Among my earliest memories are my family's annual trips to Herbie's. 

My parents, newcomers to Canada in the late 1960s, quickly embraced the tradition of heading up north in the summer months. Through a friend of a friend of a friend, my dad met a man named Herb King, a man whose family lived for generations on Georgian Bay's Six Mile Lake.

We'd load into the car and head up the 400, en route to "the cottage", which in hindsight, wasn't a cottage at all, but a shack consisting of just the basics: running water, a fridge and a small two burner stove; no bathroom, and no central heat or cooling; loads of mosquitoes and black flies competing for our city flesh and blood! The only thing that mattered to us though, was the 15 paces to the lakefront that marked our journey from the front door (which had no locks) to the water's edge.

My dad revered Herbie, who welcomed our family with open arms every year, and the feeling was definitely mutual. For two, three, and sometimes four weeks at a stretch, his small fishing boat was ours to use. My dad would take turns waking me, my sister, and brother up before the crack of dawn to head out fishing. Herbie was always awake, surveying the water and assessing the current, the slant of the sun, the movement of clouds, and recommending our best route.

I can still hear the sound of the Evinrude 5½ Horse Power outboard engine revving, and the smell of the water in the morning… the colours of green, blue, brownish black and the sensations of warm-cold to the touch, as we trolled along. And there was always a sip of coffee from my dad's thermos to cut the morning chill. Sometimes the water was choppy, those were the exciting mornings… waving to other boaters as they passed. And my dad giving thanks after returning to the dock, transferring a kiss on his hand to the water. 

When the sun took its place high in the sky, we'd shed our boat clothes for swimsuits, and run down to the rock in front of the cottage, and jump into the lake. This is where we learned to swim, challenging each other to walk through the muck and weeds without freaking out. We'd do underwater challenges and contests, eyes open and staring at each other; shouting "look at my dive mom!" as we belly flopped from tree stumps and ancient rocks jutting from the lake for hours and hours, day after day.

Sometimes in the evening, Herbie would take our family out for a boat ride around the lake, telling us stories about his life on Georgian Bay. From the marina for an ice cream cone, to rating the expansive cottages and properties along the way, my favourite was when we'd approach Little Go Home Bay. The name alone would make me swoon - then, as it does now - evoking feelings of a past and a lake that is home to all. 

After our few weeks, we'd pack up the car, golden brown from days of sun and fun, and head back to Toronto. "Come back soon Joe", Herbie would say to my dad. 

One day, my dad got a call from the 705 area code. Herbie had passed. One of his family members had called my dad with the news, knowing that Joe and his wife and kids would want to know. "I know how much you guys love Six Mile Lake", he said to my dad. That was the first time in my memory that our whole family sat down and cried together. Herbie, who welcomed our family to his small piece of Ontario's beautiful north, and allowed us to carve lifelong memories, was gone. I'll never forget him, and Six Mile Lake will always be a dear part of my life.

WRITTEN BY PATRICIA GARCIA

For My Love of Water

As a child who grew up on a small island in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean, how could I not love water?

When I started school in Portugal at the age of five, most days my father would ask, "Do you want to go to school or come fishing with Daddy?" Before he could finish the question,  I would reply “fishing!"

Dad would tell Mom, "I'm going fishing and I will take her to school."  After packing all his gear, we went on our journey to the ocean which normally took us about half an hour depending on how many neighbours we stopped to talk to along the way. Upon arrival at our destination, we had to climb down a massive volcanic cliff with indented holes made by the local fisherman for feet and hands - for safe climbing up and down.  The first few times that we went fishing, Dad would teach me that I was to sit in the water between the little rocks filled with ocean water and I was never to move from that spot until the tide came in. As the water I was sitting in started to get higher and reach my waist, I had to move up higher on the rocks behind me, and not come down till the tide went out again - and wait till Dad came for me once again. I would have my lunch that Mom packed for me (to eat at school), and I would put any leftovers and trash back in the paper bag and secure it in the old tackle box that Daddy kept just for me.

Can you imagine my privilege, sitting on the ocean floor playing with baby red, yellow or white seahorses; red, pink, green and yellow fish; red or black crabs and other things that washed up and ended on my lap. When Dad returned with his fish catch we would climb up again, take some time to rest, and in most cases watch the sunset. 

I wish I could snap my fingers and bestow these wonderful and magical memories upon every human being. If you are a nature/water lover, there's nothing more mystical than to be immersed in pure nature. The gifts that you receive are life changing to the core of your soul. It is an honour to be able to merge your whole being into the calm that is to interact with nature at it's best. For me, water in particular is the most soothing and calming experiences I have had with nature.

I implore you to find your niche in nature and immerse yourself in it and calm your body, mind, and spirit. You will see your life so much more clearly and that will help you to get through life in peace. It will help to bring balance to your life and with what makes you the person you are or can be. It will align you in your daily life and no one can take that from you. Never more than the last six plus months have we heard so much about mental health. The world is fearful and full of anxiety about what's next and for good reason, but if you look to nature you can see ahead a little more clearly.    

Humans and animals should never have to experience living surrounded by concrete, cement, asphalt, metal or plastic. Instead, it should be dirt, sand, grass, trees, water, sky, rain, sun, stars, and moon.

WRITTEN BY MARY ALMEIDA

More stories to come…