Mystique Films

The survival of Burns Bog, Michael Becker, North Shore News, Week of Feb. 19 to Feb. 25, 2001

I come from the low lands. Peaty, primordial ooze was my playground. Frogs, slugs and bugs entertained me.

As kids roaming in Richmond during the 1960s we made sport of leaping across ditches and taunting those less nimble that dropped into the muck. But better still, the bog just down the railway track was our own world away from civilization. I learned to appreciate nature there. The seasons were stamped upon my senses.

I also became keenly aware that it was a rare place under siege. Our families back in the encroaching suburb just down the track were the problem. Richmond's wild delta land, including the peat bogs, was vanishing -- giving way first to farms and then to pavement and houses.

Strangely enough, the Lower Mainland's biggest bog survives, albeit in a compromised form. Ten times the size of Stanley Park, Burns Bog is the subject of West Vancouver filmmaker Mary Bissell's first effort.

Bissell is the director, producer and writer of A Bog in My Backyard. Bissell's documentary airs at 7 p.m., Feb. 27 on CBC Newsworld.

Delta Fraser Properties owns a large slice of the bog and would like to rezone and develop it. The company is sitting on 5,500 acres of raw land right smack in the middle of the Lower Mainland. A couple of years ago the first kick at development included a deal with the province for a relocated PNE at the site. The scenario met with stiff resistance from environmentalists and friends of the bog. The deal fell apart and the bog's future remains unresolved. There has been some talk of the province buying the land but price remains an issue.

The bog is by no means a pristine environment. Portions of it have been worked over by peat harvesters and cranberry farmers. Another chunk of it hosts Vancouver's landfill. The bog is also slowly losing its lifeblood -- water -- due to a network of drainage ditches.

Yet it remains a resilient wetland ecosystem. Acidic sphagnum moss forms its base. Rotting plants turned to peat provide the bog's squishy floor.

Burns Bog was fodder for Bissell's master's degree project and student film for the graduate liberal studies program at Simon Fraser University in 1999. She says the 20-minute film was shot with "absolutely no budget" but her credit card. It got the attention of CBC and she set about to do more with the subject.

While the debate over the fate of the bog has polarized its stakeholders, Bissell says she did not go into the documentary project with a perspective. "I really wanted to take a balanced view and be open minded," she says.

Bissell spends a lot of time in front of the camera. The conceit is a favoured one these days among documentary filmmakers. But says Bissell, "That wasn't really my choice. CBC liked my presence and wanted it, which made it awkward for me, because there was so much I was learning at the time. I was directing it, writing it -- it was my first documentary. It was overwhelming to be a presence as well. I like being behind the camera. I hope I didn't fall into the trap where it became about me. I think it's more about the issue," she says.

Among the highlights of the film is the input of naturalist Don DeMille, who at one point bares all for the cause when he strips down and eases himself into a lovely patch of peat soup. The National Post's Diane Francis shows up as the poster child for the pro-development camp. B.C. Liberal leader Gordon Campbell is caught on tape voicing support for a wild future for the bog.

Says Bissell, "Burns Bog is a microcosm for civilization encroaching on wilderness. How do we resolve it? I think it's a tension we can all relate to, and it's going to become even more prevalent as we grow."

DeMille shot much of the film's exquisite footage of wildlife in the bog. Rudy Kovanic, who has spent 25 years working with Nature of Things, provided Bissell's interview shots.

Her next project is Daughters of Freedom, a documentary about two Doukhobor women. Bissell is the producer and her husband Christian Bruyère is the director. Bruyère is also the producer of the Discovery Channel series Champions of the Wild. He has created 65 films on endangered species.