September 20th, 2012

A new short film about Trout Unlimited’s Tongass 77 campaign in Southeast Alaska has captured a best cinematography award in The Drake Magazine’s 7th Annual Fly Fishing Video Awards, presented by Simms.

The “Last Salmon Forest” by Detonation Studios is a digital short that showcases the natural beauty of the Tongass National Forest and features narration by TU, Alaska Program, director Tim Bristol. In his voiceover, Bristol describes what’s at stake in the Tongass and why Trout Unlimited is organizing fishermen and others to support conservation of the forest’s most high-value salmon and trout watersheds that remain open to development and other threats.

“It’s a success story. We’re building on success. We have a healthy, viable fishery. We have a lot of people employed in the fishery. We have enough of the resource to go around for all the user groups. That’s something to be celebrated but it’s not something you take for granted. It’s not something that’s just always going to be there if you’re a good steward, if you’re not pro-active. So we want to take those next steps to make sure that we protect and conserve this resource over the long-term so it’s not something you just admire — it’s something you actually get to use; so that every year we have a healthy, fishable population of salmon. Protecting that near-shore habitat, that upland habitat, those are the things that we can do, that we have control over, that the American public can weigh in on to make sure that this remains a success story. We’re really serious about calling the Tongass a salmon forest,” said Bristol.

Congratulations to filmmakers Ian Majszak and Bryan Gregson for producing the award-winning digital short. They expect to release a longer version of “The Last Salmon Forest” later this fall.

Majszak and Gregson told The Drake: “After a grueling but rewarding 11 day shoot in South East Alaska’s Tongass National Forest we were invited to submit a digital short for The Drake film awards. With only a handful of days to edit this is our submission that won an award for Best Cinematography. Gratitude—To all the phenomenal Alaskans that put a roof over our head, kept us fed and opened up their lives to us. Without their support this project would not have been possible.”