Flathead Valley International Photo Exhibit and Film Premiere, Feb 4, Key City Theatre, Cranbrook, BC

January 27, 2010

ILCP RAVE Photo Exhibit comes to Cranbrook!

Members of the International League of Conservation Photographers (ILCP) came to B.C. in July to document the stunning, unprotected landscape of the Flathead River Valley. On February 4, the best photographs will be unveiled at the Key City Gallery during the ‘Flathead Valley International Photo Exhibit and Film Premiere’. The evening will also be the Kootenay Premiere of the ILCP film ‘Flathead Wild’, which had its world premiere in the U.S. at the Wild and Scenic Film Festival this January. Guest speakers for the evening, Pat Morrow, local mountaineering legend, Garth Lenz, ILCP photographer and Simon Jackson, Spirit Bear Youth Coalition founder will add a personal touch, explaining why the Flathead Valley is so special and unique.

Each year the ILCP chooses areas under threat to highlight through their Rapid Assessment Visual Expedition (RAVE). Last summer, they chose the East Kootenay’s Flathead Valley as the site of a 10-day RAVE. The best photos from the RAVE were chosen for a traveling exhibition; opening in Washington, DC, they are making their way west towards Victoria, making stops along the way at the Banff Film Festival, at Fernie’s Arts Station and will be at the Key City Gallery from February 4-25. ILCP Executive Director Cristina Mittermeier asserts “[i]mages are irrefutable evidence of the beauty of our planet and the critical resources we can’t afford to lose”. The area is home to the largest concentration of inland grizzly bears in all of interior North America and acts as a vital link for animals to move between the U.S. and Canada. Photographers captured images of these powerful and iconic animals during their RAVE, along with mountain goats, Rocky Mountain Bighorn Sheep, deer, elk, moose, bull trout, endangered westslope cuthroat, and a large diversity of plants and flowers.

The ILCP was not the only international organization to visit the Flathead Valley this year. In September, a delegation from the United Nations arrived to assess the area in its bid to include the Flathead Valley in UNESCO’s World Heritage Site, the International Peace Park. The final report from this mission will be released in Brazil at the upcoming UNESCO meetings in July 2010. In 2009, the Outdoor Council of B.C. declared the Flathead River was B.C.‘s most endangered river. Join us on February 4 for a visual exploration of the Flathead Valley, an area we are lucky here in the East Kootenay’s to call our backyard.

Tickets are available through the Key City Box Office, or at High Country Sports in Cranbrook, and Black Bear Books and Video in Kimberley.
For more information:

For more information, contact Robyn Duncan, Program Coordinator, Southern Rockies at 250.432.5422 or robyn@wildsight.ca