Wildfiles - Television - News - Press

By Anna Borowiecki, Staff Writer
St. Albert Gazette

ACCESS Television is broadcasting a new animal kingdom series, and a St. Albert cinematographer has played a hand in filming some of WildFiles.TV's most stunning scenery.

NERVES OF STEELE – St. Albert cinematographer
Doug Steele stalks some of the world’s most beaut-
iful and dangerous animals while filming for the
ACCESS Television show, WildFiles.TV.

With about 25 years experience as a freelance cinematographer, Doug Steele has filmed animals in every corner of the world. Carrying a super 16 millimetre camera and assorted lenses, he has captured a range of creatures from Siberian tigers to West African hippopotamus. He has captured Dall's sheep at Haines Junction, Montana, in temperatures reaching -60 C and been charged at by a cow elephant in West Africa.

While most individuals prefer to maintain a safe distance from any wild creature, Steele never hesitates to load up his equipment. ”There's nothing more beautiful than seeing nature. It's peaceful. It's beautiful. If you can be a part of it and not be intrusive, you learn so much."

With a field of vision that frames and cherishes the natural world in all its glorious and unpredictable ways, Doug Steele was an instinctive choice to film Wildfiles.TV.

Produced by Reel Girls Media, the 13-episode series is hosted by Chris Fisher and Ava Karvonen. In every episode young children set off to observe critters in their natural habitat. Stock wildlife footage is, edited into the ramblings.

The episodes include such story lines as a sick peregrine falcon that tests positive for West Nile virus, and a boy who loses his sense of direction looking for a barred owl. Another episode features a grandfather telling his grandson of beavers with teeth as big as chainsaws.

In yet another journey, a young girl learns that muskoxen were one of the few species to survive extinction from the last ice age. Steele remembers his first muskoxen shoot on Devon Island in the early spring of 1986. He was flown up to a remote camp and the snow was so thick the crew shoveled their way into camp.

They sheltered in a dome tent reinforced with plywood, so bears wouldn't break through. The furniture consisted of oil heaters and cots. The crew was following a herd in hopes of filming bull charges. "They would run and pile into each other," Steele said of the bulls.

The herds, unaccustomed to humans, spooked easily and would not let Steele any closer than 10 feet. However, one of the most breathtaking sights occurred when he spotted a vast, contented herd lying peacefully in the middle of a gentle fog. "They looked almost prehistoric. They were so beautiful."

One of the most touching incidents in Steele's adventures speaks to the strong social links of a bison community. He had set up a blind at Elk Island Park, a tent to hide and quietly observe a dead male bison. Quietly bison appeared from behind trees and went out of their way to sniff and stand by the carcass for a few minutes. "It was like they were paying homage."

Steele has witnessed a mountain goat stand guard over the bones of her dead kid for a week, and fought off the humorous advances of a beaver family that tried to bury him with sticks while he was holed up in their wet hut.

His formula for success is simple. "Wait. Just when you feel nothing will happen, something pops up. It's so unpredictable. You're always flying by the seat of your pants. But it's so rewarding."

The next episode of Wildfiles.TV is about bison and airs on ACCESS Wednesday, March 24, at 10 a.m.