Being a man on a mission, Luke Wallace has spent a good part of the last two years bringing his singing voice to the stage as a folk musician and environmental activist. Even amidst positive signs of an oil-taker moratorium on the North Coast, he refuses to let up on his message, and is now trying for a spot at the Edge of the World Festival. Between traveling across the province and representing Canada on the world stage at the Paris Climate Summit, he has found his purpose in uniting the north and south coasts of B.C. in their fight against of industrial and oil developments.
“When you hear of these threats of industry coming in LNG and oil pipelines you see them being proposed in towns where the populations are under 1000 people and Haida Gwaii extends that for me,” Mr. Wallace said.
Last summer Mr. Wallace was touring with the documentary Sail(ish) that follows a solar powered trek through the communities that would be faced with Kinder Morgan tanker traffic, which he had hoped to bring to Haida Gwaii. Unfortunately he was not able to bring the movie to the islands but now he is trying to bring his music to Haida Gwaii. Mr. Wallace hopes to be accepted into the lineup for this year’s Edge of the World Festival, where he would play his album Little Rivers Matter too, which was the soundtrack to the documentary.
“We are running huge risks by pitching tanker traffic along the North Coast, LNG or oil,” Mr. Wallace said. This is a well known issue for Haida Gwaii over the past few years but he feels the distance between Haida Gwaii and the larger populated areas silences the voices trying to be heard.
“There needs to be some unity between north and south. I have taken on that role as a folk musician and story teller. My purpose for the next while is to travel north and west, travel to these isolated areas and bring these stories back to Vancouver and try to create unity between these two
geographically different areas.”