Visions of Carmanah

In soothing silence and life-giving mist, the wilderness is re-born in a new form. Fresh colours are prepared, new brushes unwrapped, and virgin canvas gives itself up to the glorious vision of an ancient rainforest. Over 100 Canadian artists hiked into the Carmanah Valley, their common mission to experience and portray the majesty and mystique of a primordial forest before it is destroyed by logging. On the river banks of Carmmanah Creek gathered some of Canada’a pre-eminent artists: Robert Bateman, Audrey Capel Doray, Jack Shadbolt and Roy Henry Vickers. “Visions of Carmanah” is a documentary film of the painters and sculptors in search of the single image that inspires art and may save a rainforest. Some strugle with the Giant Sitka spruce, most of which are over five centuries old and 300 feet tall, or they peer through lacy veils of luxuriant foliage, carpets of moss and ferns, others choose the nearby clearcuts as their source of inspiration. Yet they all strugle to find the image they most want to take back for the rest of us to see.