The Beyond Boarding organization is coming to Smithers to screen two feature length documentaries on April 6 at the Della Herman Theatre.
The films feature footage of B.C. born Dave MacKinnon and Tamo Campos, who are trying to bridge the gap between adventure sports, and environmentalism
Their first film, Beyond Boarding, took them to Peru, where they saw, the effects of climate change on a small village in the Amazon.
“The locals were describing how conditions were getting worse every year, and we had this revelation that many of their problems were derived from climate change,” Beyond Boarding’s Desiree Wallace said. “We came back home and starting looking into our own back year.”
The second film, Northern Grease, has a more local flavour.
Last year the Beyond Boarding group retrofitted a bus to use vegetable oil as fuel and drove it around B.C. and Alberta, to various environmentally sensitive areas.
They exposed some of the major climate change issues facing western Canada and explored solutions.
The film features locals like the Egenolf family, and the owners of Dawn to Dusk, who power their homes and businesses with solar power.
Though currently there is a tenuous connection between adventure sports and environmentalism, Wallace hopes that the films will bring the demographics together.
“We’re not trying to reinvent the wheel, we’re just trying to create an avenue to engage new folks on important issues like environmentalism.”
The film will also air in Hazelton on April 1 and across the northwest over the coming weeks.
Tickets are $10 and are available at the door.