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Movie review: Haida Gwaii: On the Edge of the World explores lives of native, non-native islanders

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Haida Gwaii: On the Edge of the World

4 stars out of 5

Director: Charles Wilkinson

Duration: 75 minutesThere are documentaries designed to make non-First-Nations people aware of the way Canada’s aboriginals have been treated, and docs to make them angry. Haida Gwaii may be one of the few to make non-natives want to join them.

The setting of Charles Wilkinson’s latest film is the staggeringly beautiful Haida Gwaii, or “islands of the Haida people,” situated off the west coast of the British Columbian mainland. You may know them by their temporary name (1787 to 2010), the Queen Charlotte Islands.

Natives on these islands were almost wiped out by smallpox and other diseases after contact with Europeans. The lands have since been ravaged by over-forestry and over-fishing. (The two resources are actually linked: When bears eat spawning salmon, the bits they leave behind act as fertilizer.)

Far from a tale of First Nations woe, however, the film concentrates on islanders, native and non-native alike, who are working to bring sustainability and balance to their homeland.

We meet a woman who constructs solar-power installations to help wean the island off fuel oil that has to be trucked and ferried from the mainland. (The islanders also oppose plans to bring huge tankers through the nearby straits, so why court charges of hypocrisy?)

Others practise sustainable logging, fishing, farming and eco-tourism. Most are Haida, but many are immigrants from Germany, Mexico and elsewhere, drawn to this bit of paradise and determined to keep it that way.

On the Edge of the World completes Wilkinson’s trilogy of enviro-docs, which began with Peace Out in 2011 and continued with Oil Sands Karaoke in 2013. All have won festival prizes, with Haida Gwaii being named best Canadian film at the recent Hot Docs festival in Toronto.

It expertly mixes gorgeous footage — whales, seals, the sky and the sea — with cogent tales of practical living and activism. And if the upbeat Carry On by actor/singer/songwriter Colleen Rennison that plays over the end credits feels too chirpy — well, the film has earned it.


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