“How do you bring people in touch with the natural world? Well, I think tourism actually has a very big role to play to bring them out.” — Chris Harris 

How do you inspire people to protect the environment? For renowned photographer and adventure guide Chris Harris, the answer is simple: let them see it for themselves. Chris believes that experiencing pristine, untouched landscapes firsthand is key to understanding what’s at stake—and why these areas must be preserved.

Chris is just one of the many passionate residents and tourism professionals we’ve spoken with who love this region and are committed to its flourishing. Alongside today’s Travel Beyond episode featuring Chris, we’re proud to introduce a short film set in the Cariboo Chilcotin Coast called Connection. Created in partnership with the Cariboo Chilcotin Coast Tourism Association and Arcade Motion, the film celebrates the region’s land, lifestyle, and unique spirit of place.

In today’s audio interview, we zoom in on the story of Chris Harris and his deep passion for British Columbia’s Chilcotin region, and in particular, the Chilcotin Ark. As one of the largest contiguous and most biodiverse wilderness areas in the temperate world, the Ark is home to rare grasslands and unique ecosystems that don’t exist anywhere else on Earth. Its unique geography may even serve as a refuge for life in the face of climate change.

For years, Chris has dedicated himself to capturing this remarkable wilderness, revealing the beauty of the Chilcotin plateau through his lens—an area that was largely undocumented when he started working. Through photography, Chris uses storytelling to connect people with the land. ‘Images make people come,’ he explains. ‘They excite people, and people take action as a result.’ By creating this deep visual connection, Chris inspires people to embrace sustainable practices, encouraging people to preserve these incredible landscapes for future generations.

This episode, you’ll learn about:

• The concept of the Chilcotin Ark as a vast, biodiverse wilderness area spanning from the Coast Mountains to the Fraser River grasslands.
• The unique opportunity to witness first generation ecosystems emerging as glaciers recede.
• Finding a balance in using tourism as a tool to promote awareness of biodiverse landscapes while also ensuring their health and wellbeing.  
• The power of collaboration and storytelling to raise awareness and inspire action.
• How Chris’ photography and books have played a role in building awareness about the Chilcotin Ark.
• The potential of the Chilcotin Ark as a refuge for life in the face of climate change.

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Show notes

British Columbia Mountaineering Club — A group of like-minded individuals who participate in outdoor activities such as mountaineering, rock climbing and backcountry skiing.

Cariboo Chilcotin Coast Tourism Association — The regional destination management organization that leads tourism development and marketing in the Cariboo Chilcotin Coast Region. 

Chilcotin Ark — A biodiversity rich area, located in the rain shadow of the Coastal Range Mountains, BC, between Lillooet and Tweedsmuir Park.

Grassland Conservation Council of British Columbia — A registered charity that promotes stewardship and sustainable management practices of BC grasslands.

Sierra Club — A national and grassroots non-profit organization committed to protecting the environment, communities, and future.

Episode transcript

Chris Harris: We know so little and we understand so little about the planet that we live on. I’ve been blessed to live a life where I’ve been in touch with the natural world. How do you bring people in touch with the natural world? Well, I think tourism actually has a very big role to play, to bring them out.

David Archer: Welcome back to Travel Beyond, where we partner with leading destinations to bring you inspiring solutions to the greatest challenges facing communities and the planet. I’m David Archer from Destination Think, recording from Haida Gwaii, the territory of the Haida Nation off the north coast of British Columbia in Canada.

On this show, we’re actively looking for the best examples of efforts to regenerate economies, communities, and ecosystems. So, do reach out if you have a story to share. You can email me at david at destinationthink.com. This episode is about a region that feels like a neighbor to me, relatively speaking, at least.

British Columbia is an enormous province of 944, 000 square kilometers. That’s bigger than the size of France and Germany combined, according to Destination BC. And it’s really hard to appreciate, I think, just how vast this place is, unless you’ve had the chance to drive through it or fly over it. But did you know that BC is home to one of the largest, contiguous, and most biodiverse wilderness areas in the temperate world?

The Cariboo Chilcotin Coast region is home to ecosystems ranging from alpine areas to semi desert grasslands. In total, it covers about 12 percent of the land mass of BC. in a section about a third of the way up from the U. S. border, just to situate you a little bit. Some scientists even have a theory that Mount Waddington, a peak located about 300 kilometers northwest of Vancouver, could become the last natural water tower in the world.

All of these factors point to the likelihood that this region could become a refuge for biodiversity as our climate changes, not unlike how Alaska and the Yukon served as a refuge for humans and wildlife during the last ice age. To explore this area, today we’re joined by Chris Harris, a photographer and adventurer with a deep passion for British Columbia’s Chilcotin region, especially an area called the Chilcotin Ark.

Chris has dedicated years to capturing the remarkable wilderness here through his camera lens, showcasing grasslands that don’t exist anywhere else on Earth and sharing the pristine beauty of the Chilcotin Plateau. An area where not many photos existed when he started working. Earlier in his career, Chris was heavily involved in tourism as well as a guide in the Chilcotin, and he shares with us his point of view on tourism operations in remote or quote unquote pristine regions.

He’s really passionate about taking people to see these kinds of places in responsible ways, because otherwise how would we all know what’s at stake in protecting it? But overall, what I take from this chat is that That is an overriding love and respect for the region, its wildlife, and its people.

You’ll remember that in an earlier season of Travel Beyond, we shared a few interviews from the Cariboo Chukotan Coast region, and we’re going to add to those over the next few weeks, so there’s more to look forward to. But for now, let’s listen to Chris’s conversation with Josie Vandervelden from Arcade Motion to get inspired about how we can use storytelling, and especially photography, as a tool to help foster a deeper connection between visitors and the land leading to sustainable practices that preserve these places for the future. Here we go.

Chris Harris: So my name is Chris Harris and, uh, I’m a photographer and an adventurer. And, uh, I’ve followed my two passions of adventure and photography And it’s taken me all over the world. Actually, I ended up here in the Cariboo Chilcotin. So my journey here to the caribou has been a very exciting one. It started off in my early twenties when I hitchhiked around the world.

And I quickly learned about the power of photography. And I also learned that seeking beauty or moving towards that which is beautiful was something that sustained me. So when I was graduating from university in Fredericton, I went into the university bookstore one day just before my last exam actually and I saw a calendar a Sierra Club calendar and it was filled with pictures of the coast mountains of british columbia and I couldn’t get over them and I went back the next day and I looked at them again and I said that’s it.

So the minute I finished my last exam I went down to the train station I bought a ticket to vancouver and I came west and I never went back east for 45 years So the mountains Were my, were my calling and when I got to Vancouver, I got a job teaching in high school actually in Vancouver, but I joined the British Columbia Mountaineering Club and I learned my craft of mountaineering and I went on to start an outdoor education program for the Vancouver School Board and I, in partnership with a buddy, we started the very first adventure tour company in British Columbia.

Josie Van Der Velden: Oh, cool. 

Chris Harris: In Canada actually. Um, my, my passion was photography and an adventure. While I was teaching outdoor education to high school kids, I heard about that there was a, there was a cross country ski marathon here in 100 Mile House. It was the second largest cross country ski marathon in Canada. And as I taught cross country skiing to my students, I decided to bring them up here to 100 Mile House to go in this 50 kilometer marathon. And when I was skiing around the 108 lake, and I looked and saw little log cabins on the side of the lake with, where you just had to walk out your front door and 20 meters you’d be onto a groomed trail that took you through the aspen forests and cowboys riding horses and ranches.

Like to me it was just so romantic, I never forgot that. 

Josie Van Der Velden: You were sold. 

Chris Harris: I was sold. And, uh, eventually, uh, because my business, I was running this tour business, I could actually, I was guiding, I guided for 35 years. So I, I could guide anywhere in Western Canada, but I could live anywhere. So I decided this is where I was going to live.

I had, I knew I had to get out of Vancouver, so I decided this is where I was going to live. So I came here, but it didn’t take long before I realized that, uh, there was a lot more to the Caribou Chilcotin region than just this little area around here. I became aware of what was west of the Fraser River, this area called the Chilcotin.

It’s, it’s a land that’s so vast and, uh, it’s larger than the country of Belgium, just west of Fraser in this region. And it only had about 400 people living there. Like, virtually, uh, you know, there were the indigenous communities and a few ranchers. Uh, the Chilcotin called to me and I embraced it and I went, I gave it everything I had from then on and, uh, I, I’ve spent the last 35 years, uh, exploring, discovering, and then sharing the stories, sharing the stories of the land and the people, showcasing the region through my photography and through my book publications and the presentations that we made.

We traveled with our books. When I published a book, we went on tour, my wife and I. We showcased this region right across Canada. No one knew anything about the Chilcotin. It was, it was incredible. 

Josie Van Der Velden: It was like you, before you had seen it. 

Chris Harris: I had no idea, actually, when I first went out there. Well, you know, I met someone at a craft fair in Williams Lake.

And we got to talking about this. She gave me, actually, she gave me the name, the names of the Bracewells. So I didn’t know anyone on the Chilcotin. So I went and knocked on the Bracewells door. And I met Alex. I told Alex what I was planning to do. I wanted to photograph, I wanted to do a book on the Chilcotin.

And, uh, he just took me in and off we went, you know. And, uh, he said, listen, I got a group of Europeans arriving to go on a picnic. On a horse pack trip in another three weeks. He said, I have to do this recce trip all through the mountains. He said, why don’t you come along? And so we went and it was just the most amazing adventure through the Nayut mountains.

And, uh, he, he’d made a half, uh, a homemade raft. He rafted his horses across this lake. Oh my God. It was a total go for it, uh, wild and willy, uh, expedition. Uh, you know. And that was the beginning and then he told me about other people and I didn’t, you know, I’d knock on the door. I said, Hi, my name is Chris Harris.

I’m, I’m a photographer. I’m doing the book on the region and I understand you’re the, you know, you’re the experts here and so on. And yeah, you’d just be invited in. No book had ever been done. No photographer had ever been out there. Before long, you know, the, uh, the maps were on the table and I was being explained all the different places.

And where they could take me and, you know, take me by horse here or there. 

Josie Van Der Velden: Mmhmm. 

Chris Harris: You know, whether it was by canoe, by horse, by plane, by, by hiking. We went everywhere and explored, discovered, photographed, and then shared and showcased the region through, uh, through photography. That’s, you know, the power of photography.

It moves people to take action. Just like the calendar brought me west. And I’ve had three people come up to me and tell me that they actually moved to the caribou region because of my books. 

Josie Van Der Velden: So you were their calendar. 

Chris Harris: Yeah. It just goes on. 

Josie Van Der Velden: So yeah. 

Chris Harris: Yeah. 

Josie Van Der Velden: It’s um, it sounds like shared love of the place, connected you with all those people whose doors you knocked on and like that enthusiasm.

And connection allowed all the all of that experience to kind of open up. 

Chris Harris: You know, we’re the greatest friends to this very day and my wife Rita and I were just planning to head back out to the Chilcotin again this summer and just to say hi knock on the door again say hi and talk about some of the old trips and the old times and the adventures and experiences we’ve had, you know that’s the type of people they are and they’re the type of people we love to be around to, uh, share stories about, and, uh, you know, it’s been great for, for all of us.

Josie Van Der Velden: I bet.  

Chris Harris: It works both ways. You know, we’ve both had a wonderful time together. It’s been very rich. 

Josie Van Der Velden: When you’re out on one of those expeditions, after you’ve rafted the, the horses across the river, and you’ve set up camp, and you wake up in the morning, what’s kind of like that average morning? What does that look like?

Is there such a thing as an average morning? 

Chris Harris: No, there is not. Uh, well, you know, one thing I, I have learned There are no excuses. So, if I’m hiking across the Itcha Volcano to photograph for my book, I know I’m not going to get another chance. I only have one chance. And I can’t, I can’t come back and make a presentation in a year and saying, well, you know, I didn’t get any pictures in the Itcha Mountains because it rained every day.

You know, I can’t do that. I have to do it. So whatever that takes, if you work 20 hours a day, that’s what you do. And, uh, but that was, that was what, that was what I was driven to do. Like, I love, I love that aspect of it. If I dreamt up an image that I wanted. I would do anything to get that image. I mean, I remember once I wanted a winter image in Tweedsmuir Park.

I couldn’t find a friend who would ever want to go with me. So, uh, you know, I had a full winter camping. I had a full backpack and I was pulling a sled behind me because I had camping gear and photography gear. I trekked out into the winter, into the mountains for three days. I got to the place where I wanted to set up this image.

And did all my photography. Came back home and, uh, There was a four or five day solo adventure to get an image that I had dreamt. But once I had the dream, I had to get the image. So, I have many stories like that. 

Josie Van Der Velden: I bet. It seems like the adventure aspect of getting the image, the trek, the four days, the everything, it creates a really deep connection to the place that you’re photographing.

Do you feel like that connection has cultivated a kind of different life for you in this place? Like a different kind of home or connection to home? 

Chris Harris: The connection is huge. I think one of the things I realized, and I, uh, talk with my, my wife, Rita, who shares all these experiences with me and has done for the last 25 years, when you give yourself to the land and the people of the land, and you, uh, you put so much energy into it, like if you hike carrying backpacks through all kinds of weather, through, through a mountain range, you gain a tremendous sense of place.

I feel that’s what we’re trying to share with people, is that sense of place. It’s not only, like, the sense of place, there’s the spirit of place, and the love of place, and the understanding of place. And when you add all those together, you end up with the value of place. And that’s the key, is is to have people understand and appreciate the value of where they live because we all are who we are as a result of the land where we live you know like the land influences how we live our life so that sense of place and that value of place is what we try and share with people And that’s, you know, regarding tourism and sustainable tourism.

That’s what all of us operators, tourism operators, we need to do is to share that value. And so that other people will have the same respect that the operators have for the land that they take people out on. That’s very important. The love of land, you know, the understanding of, uh,

We look at the outer world and we value the beauty of the outer world, but that affects our inner world. And, uh, when we share a common inner world, that’s where we all come together. That’s where there’s a coming together and an understanding. 

Josie Van Der Velden: Yeah, I think from that place, that’s where really beautiful, authentic efforts to preserve and protect come from.

Chris Harris: Absolutely. Well, I mean, it’s just like with your partner in life or your best friend in life. If you value them and you understand them, you’re going to stand up for them. And you’re going to, you know, you’re going to protect them as best you can. And it’s the same for the land and the people of that, of the land that you love.

Josie Van Der Velden: So, talking about the land, can you tell us about the Chilcotin Ark? What is it? How did it come to be? 

Chris Harris: The Chilcotin Ark. Well, I was out photographing my, uh, my last, what was going to be my last book, and I heard the term Chilcotin Ark, which I had never heard before. So, I tried to, uh, find out where, what the term was and what it meant, and, uh, eventually I was led to a chap named Dave Needs.

So I got in touch with Dave, I called him, and I told him what I was doing and, uh, uh, Dave invited me down to his place, which was down in the precipice out west near Anaheim Lake. The precipice is a huge volcanic crater. canyon that drops off the plateau and goes all the way down into the Balakula Valley.

It’s been an indigenous trading route for centuries. He told me how to get to his home. There was a 16 kilometer driveway to get to his place. And so I drove down the 16 kilometer driveway and I met Dave and his wife, Rosemary, who had carved out a little house. They built the house right out of their environs down in this deep canyon.

And I spent two days there. And Dave got the maps out on the table. and he explained what the Chilcotin Ark was. Now Dave was a scientist, he was an activist, and he was living and working in the Chilcotin. And he heard that the lumber companies in Williams Lake were going to cross the Fraser and clear cut the whole plateau.

And Dave, uh, being an outdoors person, he, he had become aware of the value of the biodiversity in this particular area. And he just said, they’re not going to do that over my dead body. And, uh, so Dave spent the next 25 years. Negotiating and fighting for the preservation of that land, but back in the 70s and 80s.

There was a lot of Sort of environmental wars going on the media was highly involved and Dave was a very quiet person And he did not want this to become public. He didn’t want any environmental wars going on out there. So he negotiated in secrecy, dealing with First Nations, dealing with industry, dealing with government, at all these different negotiating tables which were established during the Harcourt government in the 90s, and when they were trying to set aside 12 percent of the land base in British Columbia.

And so he was negotiating, no one knew what he was negotiating toward, but he was negotiating toward setting aside of this huge piece of land, which had this extreme biodiversity. And he, he thought it was so valuable it should never be touched. So I said to Dave, I said, so, Dave, I’m doing this book on the region.

Right now, what you’ve just shared with me, nobody knows, because it’s all been done in secrecy. I said, would you mind if I brought this story to the world through my book? And Dave just looked at me and he said, Chris, he said, you bring it to the world and I will support you in any way I can. 

Josie Van Der Velden: Yes! Yes! 

Chris Harris: So, uh, yeah, that was pretty, uh, that was a pretty powerful moment.

And it was the beginning of working with Dave’s, and there was so much trust and working together. So I was working independently on my book, and Dave was working independently on preserving this Chilcotin Ark. And this, this convergence that we had, when we came together and decided to work together, That was so immense in terms of establishing or generating a sense of value of place.

Because no one understood that place. No one had a value of that place. So, what is the Chilcotin Ark? That’s a big question. And, uh, I can tell you what the Chilcotin Ark is in one sentence, but then I’ll take you a little bit deeper than that. So, the Chilcotin Ark is the largest, contiguous, most biodiverse wilderness complex anywhere in the temperate world.

So that says a lot in one sentence, but what’s it mean? And what, you know, what is it exactly? If we look at the Chilcotin Ark, on the western end of the Chilcotin Ark are the Coast Mountains, this incredible range of mountains that has an elevation variance of 4, 000 meters. So it extends from sea level.

All the way up to the top of Mount Waddington, which is just over 4, 000 meters. The climate that comes in off the Pacific Ocean comes and hits the Coast Mountains. It drops its precipitation, creating the Great Bear Rainforest on the other side of the Coast Mountains, but on top of the Coast Mountains and just on the Eastern slopes are deposited massive amounts of snow.

The largest ice fields outside of the polar regions are there and the Coast Mountains. within the Chilcotin Ark, with glaciers emanating out of these huge ice fields coming down and generating all the rivers that we have here on the plateau and the Fraser River, which goes all the way to the coast.

What’s amazing about that is that we’re living in a turbulent time in terms of climate. If climate warming continues and continues, eventually the glaciers of the Rockies are And the rivers coming out of the Rockies will dry up. The rivers and the glaciers of the Himalayas will dry up. But scientists say Mount Waddington will be the last water tower in the world due to the climate that comes in, into that area.

So that means that the biodiversity of the Chilcotin Ark area, which I’ll explain further as we go, will It will be maintained and all the rivers that emanate out of that, those coast mountains, which end up, you know, that’s the Chilko River, the Chilcotin River, the Fraser River, the Klinaklini River, the Hilmaska River, all these great rivers are still going to be intact, supporting life, human, animal life.

So are we talking about, is it important to preserve the Chilcotin Ark? You know, absolutely. We’re talking about a sense of value. So that’s the Coast Mountains. Now, if we come work our way eastward down on the foothills of the Coast Mountains, we have the Alplands. So the Alpine areas filled with wildflowers in the summer, and it has more Alpine lakes than any other area in North America.

It’s the most amazing place to camp, canoe, hike, explore. It’s, it’s unbelievable. And like for the last 10 years, uh, Rita and I. I have spent every summer flying into some of these different lakes, where I go to photograph. So what we do is, out of Nimpo Lake, near Anaheim Lake, we fly, we fly by float plane.

We, uh, I choose a lake that I want to photograph. We fly in, I often bring canoes in attached to the floats. drop down and we set up, Reid and I, we set up a base camp and we’ll often bring a friend or two with us. And we set up a base camp, we tell the pilot, okay, come back in 10 days, pick us up. And during the next 10 days, we will all hike and explore and paddle and, uh, and photograph this entire area and just bring it to life.

It’s amazing. The next summer we go to another lake, another area. We’re in places where no one has ever camped, no one’s ever been. We’re in places where no humans have ever walked because some of these areas are, are, they’re new in that the glaciers are retreating, revealing brand new landscapes. So we’re seeing first generation flowers coming, first generation insects and animals.

It’s all happening for the first time. It’s the most primal experience you can ever have. It’s amazing. One lake we flew in where the glaciers were calving. So there’s icebergs floating around. Now the pilot that flew us in, Duncan Stewart, when he was a young lad, a young pilot, when he first was flying into these areas, he said he could not land on this lake that he flew us into.

Because the glaciers hadn’t retreated far enough and the lake was still just a little pond. He said, I couldn’t land here. Now it’s a huge lake. And when we, uh, when we camp in the lake and you look up the side of the mountains, you can see the scars, the glacial scars. You can see how deep. The glac, the, the glaciers used to be, and now they’re gone.

And so they’re retreating and they’re calving off. And so we, we are paddling our canoe amongst all these icebergs, photographing, like it’s absolutely beyond belief . So, and we’d go to bed at night and we’d. campfire out there and go to bed and you’d hear icebergs rolling and crashing in the night and it was, it was amazing, like it’s amazing, it’s No one had ever, has ever experienced that there.

So those are the Alpins and then, and then you, then you come further east and you’re on to the vast Chilcotin Plateau. This is a land created by lava flows which emanate out of the Itcha Volcano, the El Gacho Volcano and the Rainbow Volcano. Three huge shield volcanoes out in the west, western part of the plateau.

And so, the whole plateau is volcanic. In fact, there used to be several hundred other volcanoes throughout the whole plateau. They’re all, they’ve all been decapitated during the last two ice ages. But, still, all the flows that went out from those volcanoes, that’s right underneath us, right here, where we sit today.

This is very much a volcanic landscape that, uh, that we’re in. Yeah, so that’s an amazing, the plateau with its huge lakes, Chilko Lakes, Tseko Lake, Tatlayoko Lake, they’re massive lakes. And there’s two rivers that cut right through the coast mountains. They come off the plateau and they go right through the coast mountains to the ocean.

Usually rivers come from the mountains. These go to the mountains and through the mountains. And they’re gigantic. Migration routes for animals and birds. So all migrating birds that nest in the Canadian North or in the Arctic, they all come through here. I can remember camping. I was photographing. I was camped halfway up the mountainside in one of these, in the Klinaklini River Valley.

And I was, uh, in bed at night, and all of a sudden I heard this. It was like a, a dozen jet fighters coming over my tent. Like I literally, I was, I was afraid. I ducked. It was a huge flock of migrating birds that flew over my tent on its way, on its way through. And there’s flocks, they’re just one after another, these flocks coming down these beautiful flyways.

Quite amazing. 

Josie Van Der Velden: Spectacular. 

Chris Harris: It’s spectacular. And so, and then if we keep moving east, we come all the way toward the Fraser River. And just before we reach the Fraser River are the grasslands, the semi desert grasslands. which is an ecological wonder of the world. There are grasslands there that don’t exist anywhere on the planet.

Porcupine grass grasslands, the needle thread grass grassland doesn’t exist anywhere else. The blue bunch wheat grass grassland is the most pristine, the largest most pristine um, blue bunch grassland left in North America. So, this grassland area which has sustained life, the indigenous communities have lived in these grasslands for centuries.

Trapping, hunting, fishing, gathering, cultural burning in order to maintain and sustain that ecosystem. It’s the most amazing area and nobody knew, as Rita was telling you earlier, nobody knew where the grasslands were. People would ask Rita, what’s Chris, what’s Chris working on now? Rita would talk, tell him, well he’s working on a book on the grasslands.

And you know, you get this blank look, well where are, what are the grasslands? Where are the grasslands? You know, people thought grasslands were something you mowed on Saturday morning, you know, in front of the house . So, um, yeah. So it was a great learning experience for all, for all of us. ’cause we didn’t know any of these areas.

Basically, I chose a topic for a book just out of my imagination and my desire to go and explore a certain part of the Chilcotin. You know, volcanoes, that sounds very romantic to me. Volcanoes, wow. So I had to go find. Um, I had to find out about these volcanoes, so I worked with the head geologist at the University of British Columbia.

Or, you know, I had to find out about the uniqueness of these grasslands, so I worked with two grassland ecologists from the Grassland Conservation Council of British Columbia. And so it was a learning process. We, you know, we learned about the grass, we learned about the volcanic landscapes, we learned about this, this place.

And so this, the sense of place just kept getting stronger and stronger. And, and that’s the value of, of place, you know, which we feel is the greatest contribution that we have made you. In, in this work of photography and book publishing is to bring awareness and the value of educating people so that sustainable tourism can continue.

But, uh, so, so that is the Chilcotin Ark. And so the key to the Chilcotin Ark is biodiversity and wilderness and the size of the ark. So if, if climate warming, say, continues. This area, this last area with rivers on the planet, this last area where there’s fresh water to drink. This area could become a giant refuge or refugia where life could survive, animal life, human life, could survive if climate warming continued and continued because it’s the last, it’s so big and diverse and with the altitude range.

We could survive in that, in that landscape for a long time. And if we think back to the last ice age, when this area here was covered in ice and there was no, no animal life at all, no animal life, there was a, there was such a refugia in Yukon, Alaska, where it never did freeze. And animals and humans survived the last ice age within this refugia.

And then when it melted, when the ice age ended. Life moved out from that refugia around throughout North America. The Chilcotin Ark could become a similar refugia where life could survive should climate warming continue. So it’s, it’s, the value of that is, is just so important. But it needs to be put out there to the world, you know. It needs to be told. 

Josie Van Der Velden: Is that where the ark name comes from? 

Chris Harris: Well, , yeah. And well, it, it, it started, it was like the ark. They, well, first of all, it’s the shape of an ark. 

Josie Van Der Velden: Mm. Okay. 

Chris Harris: But, uh, Dave’s wife, Rosemary, termed it the ark, just because of its biblical associations where life could survive. But, uh, it’s a global hot spot of biodiversity on the planet.

You know, it’s a place of environmental resiliency. Life can survive. 

Josie Van Der Velden: Mm hmm. 

Chris Harris: It’s, it’s all important to us. So that’s the Chilcotin Ark. 

Josie Van Der Velden: Yeah. 

Chris Harris: And to think no one knew anything about it and to think what Dave needs and Rick Careless and those who were involved with them. What they brought to the world, the importance of what they brought to the world.

I think tourism can play a huge role. I mean, tourism is the largest economy in the world and we go places because of the images that we see. In the film we see, in the stills that we see, we make decisions about where we want to travel and where we want to, what we want to see and, uh, it’s important that we bring people here, but it’s important that they, that they learn why that’s so important.

And that it is valuable and it’s worth respecting and preserving. 

Josie Van Der Velden: Yeah. Bring people here for the right reasons, to interact in the right ways. Yeah. And come home with the right message. You know, it’s, it’s so wonderful speaking to you about this place. You know, you’re talking about how you’ve generated a sense of place.

It, it sounds like a love story. 

Chris Harris: Well, you know, uh, If you do understand the Coast Mountains, and you understand the Alpines, and you understand the volcanoes, and you understand the plateau, and you understand the grasslands, 

Josie Van Der Velden: What do you feel like you’re the most proud of having accomplished with your work with the Ark?

Chris Harris: Two parts to that question. First of all, I have to say, That everything that I’ve done through photography and publishing and speaking and so on is the work of a number of very talented people who made it all possible. There are editors and there are book designers and there are critics and there are friends who have contributed financially with equipment, uh, who have accompanied us on, on, on these adventures.

Um, the contribution of my wife, Rita. Does all the logistics and the food and the preparation and, uh, literally hiked and canoed and done everything that’s involved in all those different trips. The coming together of that team has contributed immensely to whatever legacy and accomplishments have been created.

But as a photographer and, and the publisher, what do I feel most proud of? I have to say the generation of A Sense of Place. That to me is, uh, is the greatest, uh, legacy that we can leave behind us here is, uh, is to have brought awareness, uh, to this place. Bring value of place, love of place. You know, two words that come to mind, topophilia and biophilia.

Philia means love of, love. Topo is place. Bio is life, love of place, love of life. If we can bring an understanding to, uh, this Caribou Chilcotin region through a sense of place and a love for that place and, and, and the love for the people of this place. That’s the greatest thing. That’s the greatest contribution I could possibly imagine.

Josie Van Der Velden: Absolutely. Some of your work speaks of the pre agrarian world. What does that mean to you, and what can it teach us about our past, our present, and our future relationships with the wilderness? 

Chris Harris: You know, when to appreciate, I think we have to appreciate biodiversity. Without biodiversity, Well, we can’t live, we can’t survive.

So the preservation of biodiversity is what sustains life. It’s like I mentioned, uh, the indigenous communities who lived in this region, who sustained themselves and a, and a wonderful lifestyle by looking after the biodiversity that they had. I mean, it’s just, it’s just the grassroots of everything.

It’s, uh, it’s most, it’s the most important element. So education, awareness of this gift of biodiversity that we have. And when you consider. That this region has 13 of the 16 biogeo climatic zones in this province. Like, the biodiversity of this region tops all other areas I could think of. It’s, it’s amongst the most biodiverse regions on the, on the globe.

So in the globe, so, uh, we just have, we just have to, that’s part of being in love is you have to look after. 

Josie Van Der Velden: Yep. I feel like another great lesson of love is that you have to compromise and you have to balance and you have to find that kind of perfect formula when it comes to, you know, agriculture and the industry.

Industry in the region and some of the other industries that are really important to life around here. Um, how does that balance out with the needs of the ark? 

Chris Harris: Well, I know the ongoing struggle between industry, between jobs, in economics, and the preservation of biodiversity. Where does it come together?

How does it meet? I think one of the unfortunate things is there’s just too many people on the planet. I don’t think it’s fair. I don’t think it is sustainable. But I, you know, I look to Mother Nature to take care of that, because I think she will. Because we can’t, if we listen to the news, we’re always talking about economic development, and gross national product, you know, it always has to be increasing.

The dividends of your investments. Everyone wants them to go up and up and up. It’s impossible. You can’t. So, something has to happen. And, uh, I think Mother Earth is the only player that has the power to look after that. Because I don’t think we will do it on our own. So, I’m betting on Mother Nature. I’m in love with the natural world and, uh, I value the natural world.

I have great respect for the natural world. When you’re hiking across volcanoes, your feet on the ground and you, you can literally feel the energy of the planet and the ground that you’re walking on has come from 3, 000 kilometers below you. You feel that power, but not everyone, people in the city will never feel that power.

They’ll never feel the elements of the world. They’ll never feel the importance of a river. People drive up and down the canyon and there’s a river that follows the highway, but that’s all it is. They don’t understand the meaning of that river. That river represents life itself. We have to come to grips with it at some point.

How that comes about. I don’t know, but that’s where I trust Mother Nature, I guess. 

Josie Van Der Velden: She’s far wiser than us, isn’t she? 

Chris Harris: Absolutely. 

Josie Van Der Velden: If, if people disappeared out of the equation, what would the Ark become? 

Chris Harris: I think it would love the situation. It would thrive. It would be most happy. I’m sure, you know, the Ark is happy with people walking on it and exploring it and living on it and, and going to see it and visit it.

I’m sure it loves it. All it’s asking for is a little respect, that’s all. 

Josie Van Der Velden: Speaking of visitors, you mentioned how your work and the book that you’ve published have driven awareness of the area of just an understanding of what it is and these grasslands and these volcanic and just people starting to understand and be more aware of what exists around them.

How do you feel like that awareness may be shaping the transition? You know, the types of travelers or the nature of the tourism in the Chilcotin Ark area. Is it, is it having a positive impact? Is it kind of bringing a different kind of person around? 

Chris Harris: We’ve been told this, so I can’t, you know, don’t quote me on this, but Remember the Lonely Planet?

The book that used to tell people how to travel and where to travel and everything? Well we were told that there’s a section that when you, and when you’re coming up through British Columbia, when you get to this region, the Cariboo Chilcotin, it said, put your foot to the metal because there’s nothing there.

So, you know, like that’s the base. That’s the base that we’re starting at. So, and now we’re talking about the Chilcotin Ark as being one of the most biodiverse regions of the whole world. That is the, that represents the importance of education. And that’s the, that’s what tourism, that’s what sustainable tourism is all about.

It’s, it’s up, it’s, it should be playing a very important role in bringing that awareness so that people do, they want to come here. We want to go to places, to see places that are significant on the planet. We travel to areas that that are, that are going to excite us. And we’re anxious to learn. We’ve just come back from a volcanic landscape in Lanzarote, you know, on the Canary Islands.

It’s just like Hawaii, it’s a volcanic, it’s been created by shield volcanoes from below the ocean. And, uh, they are fully aware of the value of tourism. And they are controlling it, and they are, it was, it was we just had the most amazing time there. We were so appreciative. It can be frustrating at times.

Like, as a photographer, I wanted, I wanted the freedom that I had in the Chilcotin, where I could go anywhere I wanted and never see a soul. Uh, but, you know, I was in Lanzarote, I couldn’t do that. I couldn’t even stop the car to take a picture because there was no shoulder on the road. They didn’t want people stopping on their highway all the time.

But they explained it to you, you know, why. It was important that people not just be able to hike out over the volcanic landscape and destroy all the lichens that were growing and all the life that was starting on these volcanic landscapes. We were, we were told about that. You could read about it and it was left, right and center in front of you.

That’s what we have to do. We have to, uh, educate people, bring awareness, and that’s what I hope we have done through the power of photography and, uh, and the books and the talks that we give and so on. 

Josie Van Der Velden: Yep. 

Chris Harris: Yeah. 

Josie Van Der Velden: And, you know, creating that sense of awe, you know, people see your images and they read in the book, like, the science behind it and it’s just, like, so inspiring and it’s so, awe, it creates that sense of awe.

When you have that magic feeling, you want to protect your, you know, you’re looking at this and you’re like, this needs to be protected. This place has to exist forever. Look at it. Why do you think it’s important to protect these ecosystems? 

Chris Harris: Well, the importance is, like I said before, the importance is to maintain biodiversity.

That’s, that’s absolutely the most paramount thing that we have to do. But the power of photography, it has brought so many tourists to this region. I know that for a fact. And as a, as a guide myself, as a tour operator who has led canoe expeditions and so on in this region, and who has run workshops, photographic workshops.

I’ve literally brought hundreds and hundreds of people spent tens and tens of thousands of dollars here. That’s just one person. Images do make people come. They do excite people, images excite people and take, and people take action as a result. And what, like when we are on tour and we make visual presentations of this region and they and the ark, and we watch people’s faces and we listen to the questions that they ask, they are in awe.

They didn’t know that this existed and they’re all asking questions. Well, how can we preserve like they’re asking a lot of people ask What can we do? This needs to be protected. I mean, that’s a that’s a basic response Every time we make a presentation on the Chogoknart So, you know, like there are large numbers of people who are willing to respect and and value what we have. But it’s you know, education is is everything if you sit in the boardroom your whole life You And you have no connection and no feeling towards anything out there, then you’re not going to make the right decisions.

Like some people, I know some of them, who go to the, you know, who go from their home to the office without ever touching the earth, physically touching the earth. They walk out of the house, into the garage, get the car, in the parking lot, and they go up to their office and back. They don’t touch the earth.

And yet, they’re sitting making decisions about the planet. How can they make good decisions about the planet when they have zero connection to that planet? They don’t have any feelings. You know, their inner world has never, ever been touched by the natural world. That is not sustainable. It’s important to take those people out there.

Those are the people that need to go out there. I remember in the early days of adventure tourism, because we were the first to start offering tourism, charging people to go on a hike, and charging people to go on a canoe trip around the Bowron Lakes. And at the time it was like, what? You’re gonna, I’m gonna pay 2, 000 for you to take me around the Bowron Lakes when I can go do it by myself.

Well, not everyone can do it by themselves. But when we started adventure tourism, we started taking people out to these. Beautiful areas. And a lot of our friends, even, people would get angry with us for us taking people to pristine areas. And we said, no, we need to take more people to these pristine areas because if no one knows that there’s pristine areas, you can be rest assured that the extractors know what’s out there and they’re going about it and no one knows that they’re out there.

You know, no one knew half what was going on all the way up the coast. You talk to Len Ellis next week, he’ll tell you. What was going on on the coast, no one knew about it, because no one was going out there to see it. It was important to take people out into the natural world and to educate them and show them and get them to have them understand and respect.

That was absolutely key. 

Josie Van Der Velden: You can kind of see the feedback loop. It’s like, first there’s the awareness. Okay, this place exists. I’ve seen some images of it. I’m, I’m feeling drawn to it. Then there’s the access. There’s the tour operator that’s saying, Look, I can help you get into this place. I can show you.

That access, that connection, that touching of the earth creates this bond, this respect, this love. People share that. Oh, I went to the most incredible place. You’ve got to go there before you die. More people come, there’s some more money that comes to the region, then that money can go in some of the conservation.

And so it becomes this really important feedback loop that you have to keep everything in check, not too much of one or too much of the other, but it allows for that respect to continue to grow, that love to continue to blossom, and the protection to be maintained. Because suddenly everyone’s looking at it, and now you can’t just come in and, and have industry take it over because the whole world’s looking at it now.

Chris Harris: I know. Well, tourism has a large responsibility in looking after, you know, with regulations. Good tour operators need to be educated on how to operate their tours. You can’t have tour operators that are just gonna take people in their ATVs and rip up wherever they want to go. Tourism is really important, and I don’t think tourism gets the respect that it should.

Tourist offices don’t exist in the higher skyscrapers of downtown cities. They’re out all over the place and no one really cares and they don’t even know who they are or how it operates and And they’re not making the decisions anymore. So like tourism place should be it is the biggest industry and yet It’s not the most powerful in this industry. It should be. 

Josie Van Der Velden: What do you hope visitors learn when they are, you know after having an experience in the ark? What do you what do you hope that they walk away? 

Chris Harris: You know, I’ve had the thrill of guiding over a hundred From mountaineering to soft adventure, canoe, or photography workshops, or whatever. And you take people on a ten day trip, and you face the elements, and you come together, and you learn how to paddle, or how to do whatever, and, you know.

You come together as a group and at the end of a successful trip you see everyone’s lives have changed and their huge energy and love and compassion and understanding this great sharing of humanity comes together it’s an amazing high it’s like a drug you know and that’s that’s what just kept us going trip after trip like if those people ran ran ran the world it would be but you know like those experiences change people’s lives.

I’ve had business, businessmen, bankers, come off a trip and say, You better look out, Chris, because I’m going to take your job. I’m quitting the bank and I’m going to become And, you know, one gentleman did. Yes. Well, he didn’t become a guide, but he became a consultant. He said, I’m not working for, I’m not going to work for the corporation anymore.

I’m going to work for myself. I’ve, I’ve seen this happen on numerous occasions. where the experience is so powerful that they’ve shared with other people in a natural world and they’ve learned to overcome obstacles and, and they’ve learned to sleep on the ground and in storms, electrical storms and whatever.

And they’ve come together and they’ve come together. They literally go home with a new perspective on life. And some of them jump out of the rut that they’re in and make the move. 

Josie Van Der Velden: As far as how the Chilcotin Ark is managed right now, there’s, you know, you’re not entirely sure. When you think of sort of looking to the future, how you’d like to see or how you feel the Chilcotin Ark really needs to be managed.

What do you kind of envision there?

Chris Harris: I struggle with that vision, actually. I really, I really do. Uh, there are so many people who want access to everything and, uh, you know, we settlers have had it our way for so long. And we’ve just And, uh, you know, I don’t think it’s our place anymore to, uh, to manage. I think we’ve done a very poor job at managing.

And, uh, I think, uh, I think we need, we need to be absolutely all inclusive for all peoples to have an equal say and not only peoples, actually, I think animals should be brought to the table. They have a, they have a, they have a say to, um, urban people don’t know the value of. Wildlife and, and animal life, but, uh, the people who live on the land, they do.

And, uh, we all need to be at the table with the knowledge of what needs to be, what has to be preserved for us to live, to live on, you know, to continue living on this planet. We need to come together, all of us, all, all animal life. And we need to hammer it out. I think that’s the only way. No one group should have the power to tell any other group what to do or how to do it.

Josie Van Der Velden: Do you, do you think that there is an element of human management that’s needed? In order for these ecosystems to thrive in the modern context of our world, not in a, you know, the ideal world where they’re able to mat, you know, thrive in their own capacity. Do you feel like there is an element of human management required to keep this, this ecosystem thriving?

Chris Harris: Well, the human element is necessary, uh, because we exist on the, you know, we exist on the planet. And if, uh, if we’re going to continue to exist, we must learn how to manage. Most people on the planet live in, live in cities. 90 percent of the people on the planet have never seen the stars because it’s not dark enough to see the stars.

It’s hard to believe. We hardly value fresh water. I mean, you were just talking about water here. You know, the town water is, is not very good water. And, uh, the water we have here comes from the well. It comes from the water table underneath the value of water. One in five people on the planet have to hike 10 kilometers to get fresh water every day.

Every day. That’s one in four or five people on the planet. Well, that’s not right. And it’s just not right, but it’s the result of human management. So something has to change and that’s that’s where everybody Everybody has to be at the table and, uh, how we bring that about, I’m not sure, uh, because those people are not in touch.

The majority of people who are urban, the majority of people in the world are not in touch with the natural world, so they don’t, how, how, how do we expect them to have, have that value, that sense of value if, They’ve never, ever been exposed to it. So, I mean, the, the, the role of, of education, and I think that’s where tourism comes in, you know, like, there’s a gigantic role for tourism.

Maybe that’s what you’re, this is all about. This, this, uh, little presentation here is, is all about that. It’s educating and bringing awareness. The value of biodiversity. The value of, uh, wilderness. You know, open space. Like when I was in Ireland last year, I showed a slideshow, and I gave a talk, Rita and I gave a talk on this place where, uh, one of the places we flew into, and we were explaining how when the glaciers retreat, new land is being exposed to humanity. To the earth, you know, like it’s brand new.

Never. No, no one’s ever fought over it. No one’s ever grown anything on it. No one’s ever used an excavator on it. Nothing has ever happened. And I was explaining this to an Irish farmer and he couldn’t wrap his head around the fact that there was untouched land. Because there wouldn’t be one inch of Ireland that hadn’t been fought over or, you know, planted over a thousand times and it just didn’t, it doesn’t exist.

He would never have even thought about such a thing existing. And you know what he said to me? He said, so So in other words, he said, so that land is valueless. Like, he literally couldn’t comprehend that if the land was not being used, then it obviously had no value whatsoever. So, that was just a little, just a head on a head that said, you know, we know so little and we understand so little about the planet that we live on.

But not everyone can live the life I mean, that’s when I say I’ve been blessed to live a life where I’ve been in touch with the natural world. So how do you make, how do you, uh, how do you bring people in touch with the natural world? Well, I think tourism actually has a very big role to play, to bring them out.

Josie Van Der Velden: Aside from a connection to a place, when people visit the Cariboo Chilcotin Coast, and see the landscapes and the wildlife and they’re exposed to all of this, what do you want them to, to know or to take home with them when they’re like sitting around the table with their friends telling them of their experience?

Like what are you hoping that’s like that? 

Chris Harris: Well, first of all, I hope that local tourism, like the, the Caribou Chilcotin Coast Tourism Association and each of the, the different associations, the different regions, I think they have an obligation to try and educate where tourists should go and what they should experience.

If it’s all put them on a bus, And go from A to B to C so they can get, you know, like the motels make their money and the restaurants make their money. And the bus tour company makes the money, but really they’re not being exposed to the region, really. They’re being exposed to the life they already live.

They’re going from hotel room to hotel room, and they’re seeing stuff out the window. But they’re not experiencing anything. Tourism should be more, take a greater role in opening up new, new avenues of tourism. New ways to, uh, to experience the region. There’s new, new ways to experience the region. New, new technology is coming, a new way, you know, whoever would have thought that Whistler would become like a mountain bike Mecca as opposed to a ski Mecca when it first started.

So there’s lots of potential. There’s amazing potential in this region, but people need to be more experiential. They need to have a, they need to have real experiences. So operators should be encouraged to provide a more intuitive experience, a more experiential connection with native peoples, with the land, with different aspects of, of the region that, uh, people, people, many tourists come to this region and they leave and really what have they seen or what have they experienced or what do they, what do they, what knowledge of the region do they take with them?

I, you know, I hate to to think about what knowledge they, they leave after having been here and just. done the regular mainstream activities. And operators need to be educated and made aware of the value of what they have. Like over the years, we’ve met operators that really didn’t really know very much about what they were doing and what they were offering.

That’s no longer valid in today’s world of tourism. You know, tourism must become more educational and experiential. 

Josie Van Der Velden: Last question, the, you know, if, if another destination wanted to do something like the Chilcotin Ark, like to create a space or to, to bring people to a space in a different way, like what, what advice would you give them for like how to get started or, or how to sort of tackle that task?

Chris Harris: It’s up to the young, it’s up to the young generation. They’re bright and they’re smart. They have the capability of starting new ventures. I think they can see the writing on the wall as to what’s happening. And I, the value, they understand the value of biodiversity. Like our kids, they, they’re totally there.

They understand. They are the ones that should be bringing out new experiential tours and types of operators. If the new generation starts off. As operators in different parts of the Ark, they will come up with ways to bring people there and to experience it. Depending on where it is in the Ark, there’d be a lot of different ways in which Like, we have a friend who, uh, started a hiking operation in a place called Nuctesley.

But, you know, like, it’s way up in the Alpines, on the Coast Mountains, on the foothills of the Coast Mountains. And he’s setting up the number one hiking destination in the country. And he brings young people in as what we would call Sherpas, but as people who are come, who are there to take tourists, take people who are coming there to help carry their loads and to educate people about the land that they’re going through.

You don’t have to be a hardcore hiker. You can go and just carry a day pack. Young people will carry your weight. And they will be your guides. And they, you just don’t go, you just don’t send people out helter skelter all over the Ark. You take them through the Ark and you educate them about the value of this place.

And what it has to offer, and what it has. And so, that’s, that’s what I do. That’s a whole step up. It’s a long way above bus tours. But, you know, there’s even a place for bus tours. But I think they could be improved, too, on how they operate. But, uh, it’s so regional. There’s so much potential in each area.

And each area of the province has different different potentials and it’s, it’s up to them to bring in experts in all these different fields like ecologists and biologists and historians and anthropologists and elders and bring people in and find out what, what are the areas of extreme uniqueness in this, in this area, in this region of the province.

And let’s bring those up into the fore and educate people about, you know, broaden our education about British Columbia. British Columbia is the most amazing, one of the most amazing places in the world. And we’re not using its potential. When I, when I think of all the different things, There could be a hiking trail right down the Fraser Canyon.

Like what’s the hike, what’s the uh, big hiking trail in New Zealand? The uh, the Milford Track. Like people come all over, all over the world to hike the Milford Track. Or people go by the thousands on various walks in, in the old country. And, and in the Himalayas and so on. We have developed very, very few types of vacations that would give access to some amazing different ecosystems in the province.

It’s just never, ever been talked about or conceived. I remember we used to throw out ideas about things. Because when I was young, I wanted to do them all. Like, I wanted to establish new trails and do new things all the time. But no one would listen in those days. It was just before, it was just ahead of the times, in a way.

But tourism is maturing and, uh, It’s, it’s time to give people access to BC’s diversity, gain their respect for what we have, because if we don’t have that respect, we will never preserve it. 

Josie Van Der Velden: I like that. So the advice is Find the potential. 

Chris Harris: Find the potential. There are people who understand the potential.

You know, maybe an anthropologist who’s discovered, like I just got, like I send out, when I started the Grasslands book, which was the first major, this was a major step up from my tourist books, so this was going to cost a lot more, and it was, I said well, my first one was, it was all about the grasslands, and I was operating a canoe tour.

And there was a gentleman who had signed up for this trip. And, uh, we chatted for seven days in a row. It was fascinating. He had become a, he wanted to get involved in B. C. and learn about B. C. So he joined the Grasslands Conservation Council. And so he met all these ecologists and grasslands people. So he said, Chris, he said, why don’t you do a book on the grasslands?

They’re in trouble. They’re being destroyed and no one knows about them. You should do a book on the grasslands. I said, Mike, who’s gonna buy a book on grass? I’m thinking about from the economic perspective, like how would I ever sell a book on grasslands? I mean, I know how beautiful the grasslands were, but I didn’t know anything about the grasslands per se.

I didn’t know about the ecology of the grasslands and how unique these grasslands were at the time. I just knew that, I just knew it as a beautiful landscape. Anyway, the trip ended and, uh, I stayed in touch with Mike because he was up here quite a bit. So, anyway, one day that fall in November, I called Mike up.

I said, Mike, Come on over, come on over to the gallery. I said, let’s, let’s have a talk. We talked about the Grasslands Project. I said, well, what about if the Grasslands Conservation Council became a contributor to the book and then supported the book? And so, so this whole conversation started and eventually we decided to do a book on the grasslands.

Which was the best thing that ever happened to me actually because it changed my whole career. It changed my whole career, but It was a very difficult book to produce. It’s a very difficult environment to photograph Well, it’s all about the light because it it doesn’t have those snow capped peaks and things that people think are spectacular It took a lot of work three years Steady photographing without money, without generating, you know, I’m not generating money, I’m spending money and then I have to produce the book.

’cause I’m, I self-published every, every one of the books. Um, but, so I started a newsletter to try and gain an audience, and I started writing about my photographic experiences in the Grasslands. I started with 75 people that I knew, so I had a subscription of 75 people. Well, now there’s my newsletter.

I’ve written it for 18 years, every once a month for 18 years. And now I have several thousand people who are subscribers who follow, who have followed, uh, my career ever since the beginning. I have no idea like where they, I get letters from all over the world at times. Some from friends who I, you know, from 50 years ago have found their way onto it.

All sorts of, and people write, a professor from the University of Calgary just wrote last week. It’s in some of my images of these calcareous lakes in the, in the caribou here. She, she had just done a huge five year study on these lakes and she provided all this information for me. And, you know, there’s this amazing network of people who are becoming aware of this region.

And who have come here as a result, who have moved here, who have done all sorts of things as a result. But, you know, that newsletter really is a form of education. I’m educating them about photography, and about the land, and about the people. And about all our experiences. It all started with Mike. And Mike is a very good friend of ours.

I spoke to him today on the phone. He called me. 

Josie Van Der Velden: That’s awesome.

Chris Harris: And, uh, yeah, I know he’s an awesome guy. 

Josie Van Der Velden: Okay, we’ve finally come to the end of all my questions. Is there anything else that you wanted to say that, I mean, we’ve touched on a lot, but if there’s anything else that we didn’t, that you wanted to say as part of this that we didn’t cover?

Chris Harris: Uh, well, I think what you’re doing is really important. Like tourism is important. I know, I know, uh, how important tourism is. You know, I just, I just wish you the very best of luck with all, you know, what’s, what’s in store and what’s coming down the pike. I wish I was 20 years younger and, uh, maybe 30 or 40 years younger and could go start again running tours and bringing people back up into this country.

I would love nothing better, actually. But, uh, it’s time for the new generation to, uh, to run with that. And, uh, I have hope for tourism. It’s our, it is our hope, actually. Tourism is our hope. It’s our hope for the future. We just have to manage it properly.

David Archer: This has been Travel Beyond presented by Destination Think, and you just heard Josie Vander Velden speaking with Chris Harris about the Chilcotin Ark. For more resources and show notes, visit the blog at DestinationThink.com. This episode was produced and has theme music composed by me, David Archer, Sarah Raymond de Booy is my co producer, Lindsay Payne, Jamie Sterling, and Corey Price provided production support.

If you like what you hear, please take a moment to give us a five star rating on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or your player of choice. It helps more people find our show, and we’ll be back next time with more from the Cariboo Chilcotin Coast. Talk to you then.