Nature Canada

The Best of Environmental Film Comes to Ottawa

Every few weeks, my daughter Cassie insists we visit the Canadian Museum of Nature here in Ottawa — what she calls “the dinosaur museum” — so that she can visit the triceratops models and feed them her lunch. The museum staff is very accommodating toward these wholly unsanctioned fantasy mealtimes.

This week, I have another good reason to visit the museum, and it has nothing to do with giant lizards. From April 5-8 the Canadian Museum of Nature will present some of the best environmental documentaries from Toronto’s Planet in Focus Film Festival.

The Ottawa screenings are part of a national tour with stops at other natural history museums in several Canadian cities, including Whitehorse, Halifax and Victoria. I’ve looked at the line-up; it’s a mix of the fear-inducing and the awe-inspiring. There are award-winning films about the coming crisis in drinking water, the dire effects of a mass bee hive collapse, and the alarming effects of global warming. But there is also an uplifting story about indigenous peoples saving the Yukon River, another about former enemies joining forces to save the hawksbill turtle, and a fascinating underwater journey into Alaska’s inside passage.

Nature Canada joined famed author and nature advocate Margaret Atwood on the red carpet at the 2010 Planet in Focus festival for the premiere of the Ron Mann film In the Wake of the Flood, a documentary about Atwood’s worldwide Year of the Flood book tour. Since Atwood helped to raise funds and awareness about Nature Canada on the tour, we make a small appearance in the film.

(Ron Mann’s film isn’t on the docket for this travelling film fest — but you can still buy the DVD!)

Check out the museum’s web site for film schedules and other details, or the Planet in Focus site for more info about screenings in other cities.

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