The Sacred Headwaters: The Fight to Save the Stikine, Skeena, and Nass

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In the rugged northern Rocky Mountains lies a spectacularly beautiful valley, known to the Native peoples as the Sacred Headwaters. There, on the edge of the Spatsizi Wilderness, the Serengeti of North America, three of the continent's most important salmon riversthe Stikine, the Skeena, and the Nassare born. Now, against the wishes of the Native inhabitants, the government of British Columbia has opened the Sacred Headwaters to industrial development. Imperial Metals proposes an open-pit copper and gold mine, called the Red Chris mine, processing 30,000 tons of ore a day, and Royal Dutch Shell wants to extract coal bed methane gas from an anthracite deposit across an enormous tenure of close to a million acres.
The splendor of the region is portrayed in this collection of photographs by the International League of Conservation Photographers, and by other professionals who have worked here, including Sarah Leen of the National Geographic. Wade Davis compelling text describes the regions beauty, the threats to it, and the response of the inhabitants. The inescapable message is that no amount of methane gas can compensate for the sacrifice of a place that could be the Sacred Headwaters for all the peoples of the world.

Reviews

"Splayed next to southern Alaska, Canada's Sacred Headwaters region is a vast panorama of mountains, salmon rivers and canyons criss-crossed with the trails of caribou, grizzlies and mountain goats...as anthropologist and ethnobotanist Wade Davis explains, it could become a war zone. Corporations are queuing up to develop the region...Carr Clifton's haunting photographs evoke what's at stake."--Nature Magazine "This visual feast and compelling text describes the Sacred Headwaters -- where the Stikine, Skeena and Nass meet -- which is under threat from industrial development and gas extraction. Stunning photographs from the International League of Conservation Photographers and National Geographic contributors provide an inescapable message of the importance of the area for Canadians and all peoples of the world."—Vancouver Sun

Author Bio

Wade Davis is explorer-in-residence at the National Geographic Society and is the author of numerous books, including One River and The Serpent and the Rainbow. He has lived and worked in the Stikine as a park ranger, guide, and anthropologist since 1978. He and his wife, Gail, own Wolf Creek Lodge, the closest private holding to both the Sacred Headwaters and the proposed site of the Red Chris mine. Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. serves as Chief Prosecuting Attorney for the Hudson Riverkeeper and was named one of Time magazine's "Heroes for the Planet" for his work in the fight to restore the Hudson River. Kennedy has worked on environmental issues across the Americas and has assisted several indigenous tribes in Latin America and Canada in successfully negotiating treaties protecting traditional homelands. Carr Clifton, landscape photographer and award-winning documentary filmmaker, has spent thirty years exploring endangered, wild landscapes. A native Californian, Clifton began photographing in 1977 and his portfolio showcases landscapes from Arctic Alaska to the Amazon Basin.