The Sacred Headwaters is a vast and staggering wilderness in the northwest corner of British Columbia. Its massive glaciers and heavy snowfall give birth to three of Canada's largest salmon-bearing rivers, the Stikine, the Skeena, and the Nass. Looming development in the form of copper and gold mining and natural gas hydraulic fracturing (fracking) threaten the health of the watersheds and ecosystems within the Sacred Headwaters, and Tahltan heritage and history.
In the winter of 2012, with the support of a National Geographic Young Explorer's grant, John Gioia and four others spent two months living among the Tahltan and traveling deep into the wilderness of the Sacred Headwaters. In pursuit of first descents and a true backcountry experience, they came away feeling deeply connected to the land, and the Tahltan people.
