dir. Kevin McMahon. Waterlife. Toronto: Primitive Entertainment/National Film Board of Canada, 2009. DVD. 109 minutes. Reviewed by Jennifer L. Bonnell Published on H-Environment (April, 2011) Commissioned by Dolly Jørgensen (University of Stavanger) Vital to the survival of one of North America’s Director Kevin McMahon seeks to correct that most densely populated regions, and threatened balance with Waterlife, a feature-length docu‐ by a host of intersecting circumstances, the Great mentary flm co-produced by Canada’s National Lakes have been the subject of a series of works Film Board and McMahon’s production company, in the popular and academic presses over the last Primitive Entertainment, that sets out to tell “the decade. With the exception of Margaret Beattie story of the last great supply of freshwater on Bogue’s excellent history of the Great Lakes fsh‐ Earth.” Sumptuously shot by Canadian cinematog‐ eries, most of these titles fall into the category of rapher John Minh Tran and accompanied by an natural histories of the lakes or environmental evocative and memorable soundtrack, including policy texts outlining the ecological problems as‐ artists such as Sufjan Stevens, Robbie Robertson, sociated with the lakes, and the political and eco‐ Brian Eno and the Tragically Hip, the flm departs nomic remedies required to address these prob‐ from its predecessors by capturing not only the lems.[1] While the lakes present rich territory for multiple threats facing the lakes, but also the mag‐ documentary flm, not since the 1960s have they nificence of these vast bodies of water, and the captured the imagination of flmmakers, with the great variety of ways that people experience and notable exception of a handful of “made for tele‐ appreciate them. As such, it readily succeeds in its vision” productions including Inland Seas: Under‐ goal of “[taking] viewers to a familiar place and standing and Protecting the Waters of the Great [helping] them see it anew, as if for the frst Lakes (2008; http://www.glwi.uwm.edu/education/ time.”[2] outreach/InlandSeas/); Lindsey Haskin’s two-hour McMahon’s work takes its inspiration from documentary Freshwater Seas: The Great Lakes Bill Mason’s 1966 National Film Board classic, (2008; http://freshwaterseas.org); and the IMAX Paddle to the Sea, a flm adaptation of American film Mysteries of the Great Lakes ( http://scien‐ author and illustrator Holling C. Holling’s 1941 cenorth.ca/consumer-sites/mysteries-lakes/). The book of the same name, which told the story of a vastness of the lakes themselves, and the com‐ native boy who carves a wooden model of a man plexity of the circumstances that affect them, in a canoe and sets it free to travel the Great seem to discourage cinematic treatments of hu‐ Lakes from Lake Nipigon, north of Superior, to man relationships with Great Lakes ecologies. the Atlantic Ocean. McMahon breaks free of the strong guiding narration that characterized Pad‐ H-Net Reviews dle, however, choosing instead voices from di‐ tive walk around the lakes, carrying with her-- verse perspectives to overlay the visual story of seemingly penitentially--a pail of lake water from the lakes as it unfolds. Aboriginal residents, fsh‐ one location to another--seems at frst viewing the ermen, pulp mill managers, environmentalists, walk of someone not sound of mind. This is an es‐ and suburban families speak in sequence, no one pecially disturbing presentation, given the history voice more prominent than the others. Narrator of cinematic depictions of aboriginal peoples, and Gord Downie (Canadian musician and former particularly aboriginal women, as indecipherable Tragically Hip front man) becomes one of these “others.” As the flm progresses, however, she and voices, distinguishable from the others by his role her mission come more clearly into view. As we as a narrative bridge between topics. This narra‐ learn of the historic and ongoing of abuses to the tive device reveals not only the diverse stakehold‐ lakes, and their inevitable ramifications for hu‐ ers with an interest in the lakes, but also the mul‐ man and ecosystem health, her walk, and her con‐ tiple things the lakes are to us: livelihoods; cern, become increasingly comprehensible. sources of food, water, and energy; emotional sus‐ The messages in this flm are the lessons of tenance. ecology. Changes in one part of the system lead to Like Paddle to the Sea, Waterlife uses the consequences elsewhere: everything is intercon‐ cyclical fow of water as it changes form and nected. These principles are illustrated with con‐ moves ceaselessly through the Great Lakes system crete examples of some of the most pressing prob‐ as the structural foundation for his flm. The doc‐ lems facing the lakes today: nineteenth- and early umentary opens with underwater footage of belu‐ twentieth-century canal construction, which his‐ ga whales in the Gulf of St. Lawrence. Despite the torically enabled the invasion of trout-predating relatively healthy condition of the lands sur‐ sea lamprey in the 1930s and 40s, today threatens rounding the Gulf, the belugas are considered the to release highly invasive Asian carp into the most contaminated marine mammals on the plan‐ lakes, with devastating consequences for native et. One quarter of the adult population succumbs fish populations. Other problems, such as oxygen to cancer. Scientists have linked their contamina‐ depletion caused by fertilizer run-off and result‐ tion with upstream sources of pollution: the fve ing algal blooms, demonstrate the complexity of Great Lakes that ultimately fow into the St. human effects upon lake ecologies, and the un‐ Lawrence River. From the St. Lawrence, we move foreseen consequences of our actions. to the waters north of Lake Superior, covering in Reinforced here, too, is the understanding turn each of the fve lakes and their particular shared by environmental historians that the no‐ challenges and susceptibilities. tion of a “pristine” environment is at best illusory: Linking all of the lakes is Josephine Man‐ human influences are felt even in the remotest damin, an Anishnabe woman and grandmother corners and deepest reaches of these vast bodies from Thunder Bay who walked around all fve of water. We are encouraged to view the lakes not Great Lakes (some 17,000 kilometres) “in order to as an incomprehensible wilderness, but as a frag‐ sympathize with them.” One must turn to the di‐ ile commons subject to a complex mosaic of stake‐ rector’s comments on the flm’s companion Web holders, each seeking a claim on the resource but site (http://www.ourwaterlife.com/) to fnd out her too often avoiding the responsibilities that, as the‐ name and her place of residence. In the flm, she orists such as Elinor Ostrom and others have elab‐ stands in more generically for an aboriginal wom‐ orated, are essential for effective commons man‐ en with a deep concern for the health of the lakes, agement.[3] and the related health of her people. Her medita‐ 2 H-Net Reviews The flm, furthermore, does a good job of ex‐ century as an indication of the dangers of breach‐ plaining in comprehensible terms complex pro‐ ing watershed boundaries), the history of a com‐ cesses such as the bioaccumulation of PCBs and mercial fshery that brought desirable species, other chemicals, their effects on the hormonal one by one, to the point of near (and in some cas‐ systems of fsh and other species, and potential es, complete) collapse, receives little mention. implications for human health. It also raises some Viewers seeking a history of the policy landscape important questions, such as the widespread per‐ surrounding the lakes will also be disappointed. ception among residents of the Great Lakes water‐ Major developments in the regulatory history of shed that the lakes are relatively healthy, and that the lakes receive some mention in the narrative, pollution and related problems are things of the but the historical context for these developments past. As one resident of Lake St. Clair comments, is largely elided. As Margaret Beattie Bogue con‐ “I am a child of the 60s. I’ve seen fres on rivers. I cludes, jurisdictional divides on the lakes are in fear the generation of my children have grown to part what facilitated their overexploitation. Final‐ trust that government is ‘watching the environ‐ ly, the problem of climate change features surpris‐ ment.’ Sometimes it’s not happening.” One exam‐ ingly little in the flm, and its potential repercus‐ ple is the way that government hatchery pro‐ sions are unclear. grams create the impression that the lakes are Some of these subjects, difficult to cover in a healthy enough to support mature fsh, when in film that already covers so much, are addressed reality the fsh generally fail to reproduce. Fish creatively in the project’s equally luminous com‐ survival has been complicated by a crash in zoo‐ panion Web site, http://waterlife.nfb.ca/. Here one plankton populations (an important food source) can further explore the themes of the flm caused in turn, scientists speculate, by the rapid through images and documentary clips, and, with spread of invasive zebra mussels in the 1990s, and a little digging, connect with other organizations their voracious appetite for microorganisms. As and government institutions working to better the the flm makes clear, environmental problems on condition of the lakes. the lakes can no longer be understood through Some will be frustrated by the director’s simple cause and effect; instead, a “perfect storm” choice to identify the “authorities” in the flm-- of events appears to be affecting the health of the from scientists to policymakers to activists and lakes. lakeside residents--by context alone, rather than Having recently taught a course on the histo‐ through the more standard documentary practice ry of the Great Lakes, I found the flm to be espe‐ of intertitles (textual identifiers).