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THE FIGHT FOR CANADA’S ENERGY FUTURE

By JACQUES POITRAS

A timely chronicle of how Canada’s oil pipelines have become hotbeds for debate about our energy future, Indigenous rights, environmental activism, and east-west political tensions. 

Pipe Dreams is the dramatic story of the rise and fall of the Energy East pipeline and the broader battle over climate and energy in Canada. The project was to be a monumental undertaking, beginning near Edmonton, AB, and stretching over four thousand kilometres, through Montreal to the Irving Oil refinery in Saint John, NB. Conceived as a back-up plan for the stalled Keystone XL pipeline, it became the crucible for a national debate over the future of oil. 

In a cross-country journey, Poitras talked to industry executives, prairie ranchers, First Nations chiefs, mayors, premiers, cabinet ministers, and refinery workers. He also explored Canada’s perplexing oil relationship with the United States: our industry is literally tied to its American counterpart with sinews of steel. The Energy East pipeline represented a new direction, designed to get Alberta oil sands crude to lucrative world markets. Yet it was promoted in explicitly nationalist terms: the country was said to be reorienting itself along its east-west axis, tying itself together, again, with a great feat of engineering. 

By the time the journey ended, the story had become a kind of whodunit: Poitras witnessed the slow-motion killing of the fifteen billion dollar project. Unfolding in tandem with clashes over the Trans Mountain pipeline, Energy East’s demise heralded a potential turning point not just for a single proposal, but for Canada’s carbon economy.

Entertaining, informative, and insightful, Pipe Dreams offers a clear picture of the complicated political, environmental, and economic issues that Canadians face.

Co-edited by gestalten & BESIDE
International publication date: May 12, 2020

Features: Full colour, hardcover, stitch bound, 272 pages, over 300 photographs
Format: 21 × 26 cm, 8 ¼ × 10 ¼ inches
Price: € 39.90 (D)  £ 35 $ 60 (US)
ISBN: 978-3-89955-9842

From Kenya to Korea, from Iceland to Canada, traditions surround us. They are carried in the passed-down stories, rituals, and skills that keep us afloat: things like cooking, sewing, farming, beekeeping, building, blacksmithing, and shepherding. Today, a new generation of people seeking out creative ways to revive and adapt traditions to make them more sustainable. As a way of inspiration, this book tells the stories of these individuals and communities taking part in a movement for a “new traditional”.

Featuring 

• Chef Virgilio Martínez, Peru 
• Flower farm owner Sarah Ryhanen, New York 
• Falconer Marc-André Fortin, Québec  
• Seamstress Jeanette Holding, Geenland
• Saltmaker Björn Steinar Jónsson, Iceland 
  
• Globemaker Peter Bellerby, United Kingdom 
• Blacksmith Mathieu Collette, Montréal 
• Rancher Kate Beardsley, Oregon 
• Winemakers Lore and Skyla Olds, California 
• The artists and fishermen community of Fogo Island, Newfoundland and Labrador 
• The Ogiek community, Kenya 
• The Bedouin Date Sellers, Saudi Arabia 
• The female free-divers of Jeju, Korea 
• The new beekeeping tradition around the world 
• The sauna rituals in nordic countries 
• The shepherding family practices of Iceland and Italy 
• The communal Crépissage tradition of Mali 
• The new generation of sake makers in Japan 
• And much more. . .