Legendary skier-turned filmmaker Mike Douglas, who earned the nickname of “the Godfather of Freeskiing” for helping to invent the first twin-tipped ski, has also been at the forefront of the sustainability movement in his home country, launching Protect Our Winters (POW) Canada in 2018, of which he is chairman.

EcoSki’s Abigail Butcher chatted to Mike about the ski community’s move toward sustainability, his latest film projects and dealing with overwhelm in the face of climate change.

ES: You live in Whistler-Blackcomb, which is well known for its environmental efforts, what prompted that and how much are you seeing other resorts and ski folk in general making a change towards sustainability?

MD: Climate change has been in our faces for a long time here in Whistler. Years ago when I was summer training on the Horstman Glacier, the glacier was thick like a filled in, rounded bowl of milk. It has been receding over the years but in the past 10-15 years that’s been accelerated. Now it’s like a bowl with only a bit of milk at the bottom. Last summer the resort had to remove the main T-Bar servicing the glacier because the slope near the top became too steep for the lift to operate safely.

I think the wealthier, more popular ski resorts like Whistler Blackcomb have the means to make the change which over time is trickling down to the smaller ones. There’s a lot of choice right now on where you go on ski vacation, so as skiers we can make a choice that aligns with our values — you don’t have to give up your hobby.

 

ES: Do you think top skiers/snowboarders like yourself have a duty to lead the way and inspire others/show them how we can easily make little changes, even if that means just buying a reusable water bottle or donating old ski kit?

MD: All of it is part and parcel of our role these days. Pro skiers just used to show all the glory and now we also talk a lot about safety. For Salomon TV (Mike is also an ambassador for Salomon) we have released four films focused on climate change and have mentioned it for many, many years. The first climate film we made was called Guilt Trip – we wanted to ski Greenland’s second highest peak, but when we looked at the resources we’d need to get the film crew there (flying, helicopters, etc), we realised we needed to find a way to offset our trip. We started reaching out to climate scientists to see if we could combine our trip with a research project. A Welsh scientist named Alun Hubbard answered the call. We were there for three weeks, climbed and skied that Mt Forel, but also helped Alun carry out research on a part of the ice sheet that is really difficult to access. Alun has since written a paper based on the research we carried out about the rate of sea-level rise. We’ve also released The Curve of Time with Greg Hill and Chris Rubens, and last year we produced Electric Greg, following Greg Hill’s mission to climb and ski 100 peaks without using fossil fuels.

 

ES: You do a lot on social media, how much do you have to deal with climate deniers — do you engage with them?

MD: My biggest interaction through social media is “exciting” ski stuff. A few years ago an environmental post wouldn’t get much traction and the haters would attack me. I used to engage with them occasionally, but now I fully ignore them. It’s mostly just a waste of time. We had some experts from Yale at a POW conference explain how the climate denying network works. It’s a co-ordinated effort to get their comments to the top of your feed and take over the narrative. I either restrict or block them because my social media is my soapbox, not theirs. At this point denying climate change is like saying smoking is good for your lungs.

 

ES: What sustainability projects are you currently working on with POW/your film company Switchback Entertainment/Salomon TV?

MD: Last summer a 13-year-old boy named Sam Tierney from a nearby town called Pemberton wrote me a letter saying he was concerned about climate change. I replied to him, which I try to do, and we began a little friendship. When I was developing some story lines for Salomon TV last fall, I suggested we film a ‘season’ together and I’ve been mentoring him all winter. We go skiing together once a week, working on his goals — like he wanted to learn how to do a 360 and get better on steeps — and also climate goals. We had some lofty goals at first which we had to pare back because of Covid, but in March he put on a Fridays for Future climate march at his school. He set up a petition and suggestion box which he presented to the town council and we got to meet and speak to the mayor of Pemberton. I also took him around the mountains here, be it the glacier, ice cave, or the forests on Blackcomb to show him how you can see the effects of climate change in our own backyard. People think a forest is a forest but in BC only 3% of old-growth, large stand forests remain thanks to logging. It takes hundreds and hundreds of years for these ecosystems to recover — it’s not as simple as planting a new tree when you’ve cut down an old one. New forests tend to grow back dense and unhealthy — the ecosystem is entirely different. That project, called “Sam and Me” will be coming out Fall 2021.

 

ES: Do you ever feel overwhelmed, while in the mountains, by the challenges we face?

MD: When I first started thinking more about climate change, I did get quite down. Over the years I’ve found that taking action alleviates some of the stress. It feels good to help move things in the right direction. I used to travel on a whim, heliski a lot. I don’t miss those things as much as I thought and get a lot of satisfaction through doing things differently. There’s no silver bullet that’s going to solve this, so now I take a more measured approach and think it’s about trying to ‘trend better’ and, as we say in POW, not strive for perfection, but progress.

Interview by Abigail Butcher