Canadian Avalanche Centre - Avalanche Awareness Days

Visiting wild places means you need to be aware of potential dangers and have the skills to assess and deal with them safely. The Innate team love creating gear that will perform reliably in the mountains, particularly in demanding winter conditions; but we also recognise the need to have the knowledge on how to travel safely at this time of year. The Canadian Avalanche Centre (CAC), in partnership with Canadian Pacific, presents Avalanche Awareness Days—a celebration of Canada’s avalanche safety expertise and an invitation to enjoy the winter backcountry with education and training.

Community events are held annually during the third week of January at ski and winter recreation areas in mountain communities across Canada, from Crowsnest Pass, Alberta to Whitehorse, Yukon to Pond Inlet, Nunavut. Day-time activities include hands-on demonstrations of safety gear such as avalanche beacons, probes, and shovels, and tips on how to use public avalanche bulletins. In every community, avalanche professionals and many volunteers share their expertise to help people learn how to manage their risk in avalanche terrain.

Many communities have a full weekend of activities, from on-hill demonstrations to night-time fundraisers with movies, gear auctions, and live bands. All proceeds go directly to support public avalanche bulletins and public avalanche safety programs in Canada. Innate is pleased to provide gear for participant prizes in the various events held in participating communities.

EP Films

A team of National Geographic explorers, EP Films is composed of equal parts adventure, film making and conservation, providing high-quality films for a wide range of clients. Whether working with National Geographic on location, or helping a local nonprofit win a conservation victory, our team of experienced filmmakers and storytellers knows how to bring your issue to life. We are proud to have supported their recent Elephant Ivory Project, a forensic expedition to help with elephant conservation.

Visit epfilms.tv for more information.

13,699

Christine Destrempes is the artist who created 13,699 as the first project in the ART FOR WATER SERIES. In her words:

"I am drawn to water's capacity for transformation as well as its reflective stillness, seamless adaptability, and proclivity to follow the path of least resistance. Water is the perfect embodiment of permanence and impermanence. By observing it, there is much to learn about navigating life. Through my exploration and interpretation of water's myriad of characteristics and sublime beauty, I hope not only to engender an appreciation for, but also to promote preservation of one of our most precious natural resources. Several years ago I read that 5 million people die every year from water-related diseases and wondered why there is no alarm sounding. While the figure haunted me, it felt impossible to imagine. I got my calculator and figured out how many people die every day, every hour, and every minute. Then I realized I had to translate this visually. I have created an installation about the shrinking availability of clean water using recycled clear plastic water bottle caps to represent each person who dies every day because he or she does not have access to clean water. The installation, 13,699, was created to raise awareness of the number of people who die every day from water-related diseases because they do not have access to clean water. To symbolize these deaths, one clear plastic water bottle cap is used to represent each person. The object of this installation is to present the opportunity to experience physically the magnitude of this humanitarian crisis statistic."

13,699 has been a catalyst for engagement and action resulting in further projects by Christine and members of participating communities in the Art for Water series.

Visit destrempes.com for more information.

THE BIG WILD

The vision of The Big Wild is to keep at least half of Canada's public land and water wild forever. They are realizing this vision by supporting wilderness conservation campaigns across Canada.

The Big Wild helps these campaigns by:

• educating people about the urgent need to protect one of the world’s last remaining wilderness areas – which amounts to 20% of all that’s left on the planet
• raising funds for wilderness protection
• enabling people to show decision-makers they support wilderness protection

Visit thebigwild.org for more information.

THE CONSERVATION ALLIANCE

The Conservation Alliance partners with organizations and funds campaigns to permanently protect wild places in North America for their habitat and recreation values. The Alliance was founded in 1989 by outdoor industry leaders REI, Patagonia, The North Face, and Kelty, who shared the goal of increasing support for conservation efforts. They now have more than 180 member companies, and have disbursed an accumulated total of more than $9.5 million from membership dues to grassroots environmental organizations. They direct their funding to community-based campaigns to protect threatened wild habitat, preferably where outdoor enthusiasts recreate. The results of their funding have been remarkable; grants have helped organizations in their work to protect more than 50.5 million acres of land, stop or remove 28 dams, and preserve access to thousands of miles of rivers and several climbing areas. Funding is provided via a rigorous grant proposal review process that ensures grants go to organizations that can succeed given the necessary financial resources.

To learn more visit www.conservationalliance.com

BIG CITY MOUNTAINEERS

The Mission of Big City Mountaineers, a 501 (c) 3 is to enhance the lives of under-resourced urban teens through transformative outdoor experiences. BCM provides opportunities to young adults unable to access the outdoors on their own.

The teens that go on BCM trips come from low income households and telling them they have a great opportunity but to participate they need to buy their own hiking boots and personal gear would be absurd. With the help of sponsors like INNATE, BCM was able to deliver over 2500 program days to inner city, urban teens in 2009.

Visit bigcitymountaineers.org for more information.

WATERKEEPER ALLIANCE

Waterkeeper Alliance is an international grassroots advocacy organization with 182 Waterkeeper programs and growing. They are dedicated to preserving and protecting YOUR WATER from polluters.

Visit waterkeeper.org for more information.

Save Our Wild Salmon

Founded in 1991, Save Our Wild Salmon (SOS) is a nationwide coalition of conservation organizations, commercial and sportsfishing associations, businesses, river groups, and taxpayer advocates working collectively to restore self-sustaining, abundant, and harvestable populations of wild salmon and steelhead to rivers, streams and oceans of the Pacific Salmon states.

Visit wildsalmon.org for more information.