Project 02 of 17
Fields and Forest
Brand & Campaign · Radium Hot Springs, British Columbia
Radium Hot Springs, British Columbia. Three takes, one afternoon.
The Columbia leaves Columbia Lake flowing north, and for 150 kilometres — Canal Flats to Golden — it spreads into the wetlands that run past Radium Hot Springs: the largest of their kind in British Columbia, a Ramsar Wetland of International Importance since 2005.
Atom2Adam Studio filmed them on one overcast afternoon in three takes. The first rises from standing water in a meadow until the river's bend, the single-track railway beside it, the hay fields and both ranges are in one frame. The second looks down the valley. The third, thirty-six minutes after the first by the camera's own clock, is in the trees under a peak with cloud below its summit. Nothing was staged. Nothing was lit.
- Subject
- The Columbia River wetlands at Radium Hot Springs, British Columbia — 150 kilometres of wetland from Canal Flats to Golden, a Ramsar site since 2005, below the village at the south gate of Kootenay National Park.
- Intent
- Show the valley the way it is built: water on the floor, forest on the wall, and the ranges holding both.
- Seen
- Standing water in a meadow, the river doubling back on itself, a single-track railway running straight beside it, hay fields and a farmstead, cloud lying on the far ridge — and, in the trees, grey summits with cloud below them.
- Made
- Three takes on one overcast afternoon, the last thirty-six minutes after the first. Five films and eight frames cut from them. Nothing staged, nothing lit.
I
The meadow
Standing water in the grass, the river's tree line beyond it.
The water standing in the grass belongs to the river. The Columbia spreads across this floor for 150 kilometres, Canal Flats to Golden, and the wetland it makes is the largest of its kind in British Columbia — a Ramsar Wetland of International Importance since June 2005, with more than 260 bird species on its list.
The rise begins over the meadow.
Ponds the river left behind.
II
The river
The bend, the railway beside it, the farm on the bench.
The railway runs straight. The river never has.
Up past the bend, the railway holding its line.
The Columbia is flowing north here. It leaves Columbia Lake heading away from the sea and holds that course past Radium and Golden until the Big Bend turns it south toward the Pacific. The railway beside it was laid straight; the river has spent the years since finding new ways round it, and the ponds in the meadow are the ways it gave up.
Single track on the embankment, wetland on both sides.
III
The valley
The whole floor: river, railway, fields, both ranges.
The village sits at 808 metres, where Highway 93 comes down out of Kootenay National Park to meet Highway 95 — fifteen minutes north of Invermere, 135 kilometres west of Banff. Three kilometres up Sinclair Canyon, Parks Canada holds the hot pool between 37 and 40 degrees: the largest hot-springs pool in Canada.
The top of the climb.
Down the valley, from above the trees.
Eight seconds, at half speed, down the valley.
IV
The forest
One tree at a time.
Fields on the floor, forest on the wall. One valley, one afternoon.
Over the canopy, toward the summits.
The third take was made thirty-six minutes after the first, by the camera's own clock. Down on the floor the light was flat and the water was still; up here the cloud sits below the summits, and the slope reads one tree at a time.
Cloud below the summits.
Detail → Whole
Fields and Forest ends. 17 projects in the collection.
