Mile: 770-1032 The Healing Gathering
At long last, here we are at the final destination, although far from the end of the story.
We last left our team at Lily Lake, a campground just north of Edmonton, Alberta. During our time there we realized something unwelcome: we had misjudged the starting day of the Healing Gathering.
Consequently we found ourselves 250 miles away from where we were to stop near Anzac, Alberta, and only one day to go before it started! A plan was hatched to divide the team into two for a couple days. Derek, Erika, and Amanda would speed north on infamous Highway 63 to witness the full gathering and make sure our presence was known. Meanwhile, Brian Deheer from Lac la Biche, Alberta stepped up to be the escort vehicle for Kyle and I to make a nearly 100-mile ride to his house, and then make a 150-mile ride to the Gathering and rejoin everyone else. We felt it was important to complete the bicycle pilgrimage.
The plan worked. Derek, Erika, and Amanda were able to take in the whole first day of the Gathering, including a sweat lodge, and then beheld the tar sands themselves, surrounded by participants.
Kyle and I tried to make good time moving north. The aspen parklands gave way to muskeg—the biome of the boreal forests. The further we went, the more fossil fuel projects we passed. We arrived two hours too late for the events at the tar sands tailing ponds, but we did find our hosts, the Woodwards (Cree members of the Fort McMurray First Nation). We soon saw our team and met many the wonderful people as they returned from their adventure that day.
This video runs more like a documentary than the others, alternating between two storylines in chronological order: that of the Healing Gathering, and that of the cyclists racing to get there.
This was a complete BEAR to make, and for making it possible, I have to thank Derek Hoshiko a lot. He and I waded through corrupted data, recovering what we could, converting it through an insane roundabout process. Then, I attempted to stitch it into a coherent story. This took weeks and weeks.
That said, in this video you get to see the tar sands. This is the belly of the beast. We may be at the destination now, but this is only the start of its revelation to us.
