Steven Kazlowski - The Last Polar Bear

For the past eight years, wildlife photographer Steven Kazlowski has travelled to the Arctic to photograph polar bears, walruses, seals, whales, and other native species. The Last Polar Bear: Facing the Truth of a Warming World combines 235 of his full-colour photographs with essays from nature writers, scientists, and conservationists that define many subjects, from the hardening conditions of polar bear procreation to greenhouse gas emissions, glacial melting, oil drilling, and becoming carbon neutral, all of which affect the climate crisis today.

While in Alaska, Kazlowski travelled by boat, sled, snowmobile, and on foot to capture a world that is rarely experienced. He accompanied native Inupiaq hunters on whale and seal hunts, and camped for weeks in temperatures below fifty degrees Fahrenheit to create an intimate and compelling look at the polar bear and its changing world.

Sid Marty - The Black Grizzly of Whiskey Creek

In describing the true events surrounding a series of frightening bear attacks in l980, bestselling nature/adventure author Sid Marty explores our relationship with the great grizzly. Many citizens of Banff, Alberta, valued living in a place where wildlife grazed on the front lawn; others saw wild bears as a mere roadside attraction. None were expecting the bear attacks that summer, which led to one man’s death. During the massive hunt that followed, Banff was portrayed in the international media as a town under siege by a killer bear, and the tourists stayed away. The pressure was on to find and destroy the Whiskey Creek mauler, but he evaded park wardens and struck again — and again. When the fight was over, the hard lessons learned led to changes that would save the lives of both bears and people in the coming years. Sid Marty’s The Black Grizzly of Whiskey Creek is an evocative and gripping story that speaks to our complex and increasingly combative relationship with the wilderness and its inhabitants.

Richard Smith

Coming in the wake of rising global concerns about the continued supply of oil and increasingly weird weather patterns, in Crude – The Incredible Journey of Oil, Dr. Richard Smith takes us through time: from the birth of oil deep in the past, to its ascendancy as the indispensable ingredient of modern life. Filmed on location in 11 countries across five continents, Smith consults the leading international scientific experts to join the dots between geology and economy and provide the big-picture view of oil.

Sid Marty - The Black Grizzly of Whiskey Creek

In describing the true events surrounding a series of frightening bear attacks in l980, bestselling nature/adventure author Sid Marty explores our relationship with the great grizzly. Many citizens of Banff, Alberta, valued living in a place where wildlife grazed on the front lawn; others saw wild bears as a mere roadside attraction. None were expecting the bear attacks that summer, which led to one man’s death. During the massive hunt that followed, Banff was portrayed in the international media as a town under siege by a killer bear, and the tourists stayed away. The pressure was on to find and destroy the Whiskey Creek mauler, but he evaded park wardens and struck again — and again. When the fight was over, the hard lessons learned led to changes that would save the lives of both bears and people in the coming years. Sid Marty’s The Black Grizzly of Whiskey Creek is an evocative and gripping story that speaks to our complex and increasingly combative relationship with the wilderness and its inhabitants.

Alan Weisman – The World Without Us
The World Without Us – a critically acclaimed work that steps back from the heated environmental debates of the day, offering a wholly original approach to questions of humanity's impact on the planet. Weisman examines how our planet would respond without the pressures of human presence, and asks us to envision our Earth, without us. He will speak about his experiences writing The World Without Us, his thoughts on the current environmental atmosphere, and answer questions from the audience.
Weisman is one of the most esteemed science writers of our time - and his book is on the New York Times Best-Sellers list.

Chris Turner – The Geography of Hope
Geography of Hope: A Tour of the World We Need was one of The Globe and Mail's annual "Globe 100" best books of the year. After the fierce warnings and grim predictions of The Weather Makers and An Inconvenient Truth, acclaimed journalist and bestselling author Chris Turner finds hope in the search for a sustainable future. 

David Lavallée – Liquid Truth
Liquid Truth is a documentary film that Lavallée made over the course of much of 2007. The film follows two guides on an exploration to “connect the drops” of the Athabasca watershed ecosystem, from the glacier, across northern Alberta, and into Lake Athabasca and the region of Alberta’s oil sands development.

Pat McCloskey and Heather Walter: Yemen –The Arabia Less Travelled
Join Patrick McCloskey and Heather Walter on their trip to a little-known country in the southwestern corner of the Arabian Peninsula - from high mountain villages, to the coast of the Arabian Sea, through the vast sand desert that once teemed with camel caravans on ancient incense trade routes.

Jerry Kobalenko – The Iceman Returns
Most of us will never trek 600 kilometres alone across the icy wilds of Labrador in the dead of winter. Bow Valley photographer, writer, and adventurer Jerry Kobalenko has done it — twice! — and shares his stories and images of Canada’s north. Canada’s premier arctic traveler, Kobalenko has logged over 6,000 kilometers on foot in the Arctic over some 25 expeditions. His latest book is the critically acclaimed The Horizontal Everest: Extreme Journeys on Ellesmere Island.

David Zurick – Shangri La - Himalaya in the Geographical Imagination
This multi-media presentation by David Zurick explores the place of the Himalaya in the human imagination, tracing its influence from the early mystic pilgrims through the age of exploration, and into the modern era of tourism and mountaineering. Packed with maps and photographs, the lecture offers a visual narrative of geographical discovery in the Himalaya and examines how this sacred landscape is transformed by the global forces that penetrate the Himalaya.

Nils Larsen – Skiing’s Ancient Roots
Modern skiing as we know it originated in Scandinavia, but the roots of skiing stretch further back in time to the end of the last ice age in the heart of Central Asia. Nils Larsen travelled together with photographer Dave Waag and skier Naheed Henderson to the Chinese Altai Mountains in 2005 and has since returned to the region. He presents an intimate view of the life and people of this ancient mountain culture and looks at the origins of skiing as a means of travel and hunting in the winter world.

Jerry and Sasha Kobalenko – Kayaking Canada’s Newest National Park
On February 1, Mountain Culture at The Banff Centre will kick off the 2007 Mountain Culture Speakers’ Series with an engaging multimedia presentation by the Kobalenkos, tracing their wilderness kayak journey in Torngat Mountains National Park Reserve. Canada’s newest National Park, it’s a remote and rugged location, visited by Inuit fishermen, herds of caribou, and wandering polar bears. The Kobalenkos were the park’s first official visitors.