This is the second part of my expedition of discovery around BC's Coast Mountains. Last summer I attempted to paddle from Richmond, BC to Prince Rupert, but I only got half way, turned back by a more-difficult-than-expected bushwhack up Belize Inlet behind Cape Caution.

I am doing this trip to satisfy a dream I've had most of my life to immerse myself in the nature of my home, the north west coast of North America. I want to make a photo and video documentary of my trip, both above and below water as I move through this amazing ecosystem.

I hope that this trip will help bring attention to the threats facing this region, in particular the prospect of gigantic super tankers to service a proposed oil pipeline from Alberta to Kitimat. Not only is there a very real and likely risk of a super tanker spill, which would be one of the largest in history if one of those was to disgorge its contents, but there is the almost certain risk of major spills from the pipeline from Alberta which must be routed through some of BC's finest wilderness, and must cross very rugged terrain with frequent landslides that regularly rupture existing natural gas pipelines. The difference is that natural gas evaporates away whereas oil flows downwards to the sea and contaminates entire rivers along its way. Enbridge, the company proposing this pipeline (and which is assuring us that it is safe...), regularly has large spills, on a yearly basis it seems, from its other pipelines across North America.

Not only this, but I would like to try to show people that we do not need oil or natural gas as a source of energy; the alternatives are much cheaper, and better as well. Beyond this, it seems unlikely that the Alberta tar sands are even a source of energy at all, since the amount of external energy that must be brought in to provide the energy needed to turn tar sand into gasoline (most of this energy comes from natural gas), is approximately the same amount of energy you get out of the gasoline at the end (the numbers are understandably a bit fuzzy but that is what it looks like). This natural gas is currently being extracted using fracking techniques which are destructive to groundwater supplies.

We are all being unwittingly forced to be part of an economic system that by its very design must continually and exponentially grow larger. When the energy used to drive this growth comes from increasingly dwindling supplies of unsustainable fossil fuels, the end result cannot possibly be good. We are nearing that end (much sooner than you may think) and I hope some readers will take the information I provide and use it to not only protect themselves financially, but to help spread the word about what is happening to our economies and what can be done about it.

This summer I have only three weeks for my trip, starting in the beginning of July, which my employer graciously provided despite the busy nature of the engineering business with commodity prices up this year. So I will attempt the section from Belize Inlet to Rivers Inlet, and I will stop by the grizzly viewing opportunities up Smith Inlet midway through the trip.

http://markbc.wordpress.com/around-the-coast-mountains/