New Documentary Chronicles Bow Valley’s 20-Year Effort to Coexist With Grizzlies
VANCOUVER, B.C. – OCTOBER 12, 2026 – The Green Channel has added Living with Wildlife, Leanne Allison’s 2017 documentary about how the communities of Alberta’s Bow Valley, including Canmore and Banff, have learned to share their home with grizzly bears and other wildlife.
The film describes the Bow Valley as the busiest place in the world where people and grizzly bears still coexist. It also shows that this coexistence did not happen by accident. Over two decades, residents, volunteers and wildlife experts changed the way the valley works.
Some of those changes happen at the scale of a single backyard. In Canmore, garbage bins are designed so bears cannot get into them, and there is a bylaw on bird feeders. The town has worked to remove food sources from inside its footprint, which has gone as far as replacing fruit trees with trees that flower but do not bear fruit. WildSmart training teaches both kids and adults how to live safely alongside wildlife.
Other changes happen at the scale of the whole valley. Wildlife corridors give animals room to move through and around the towns. On the Trans-Canada Highway, the film reports that 20 years of work on wildlife crossing structures and highway fencing has reduced wildlife deaths from highway collisions by 80 percent, with thousands of wildlife crossings documented.
The film closes by listing what the region has achieved. It describes the Bow Valley as a world leader in bear-proof waste management systems and as the model for highway crossing structures around the world. It also credits the region with the first formal wildlife corridor guidelines in North America and the longest running aversive conditioning program in North America, which trains bears to keep their distance from people. WildSmart is described as an award-winning, community-based program that sets the benchmark for human-wildlife safety, outreach and education.
“With the film I really wanted to reinforce that culture of living with wildlife,” Allison told the Rocky Mountain Outlook.
According to Allison, groups including WildSmart, the Yellowstone to Yukon Conservation Initiative and the municipalities of Canmore and Banff have used Living with Wildlife to help educate new staff, visitors and residents. The film also screened at the Banff Mountain Film Festival and was featured on the National Geographic Short Film Showcase.
“Leanne Allison’s films keep coming back to one question, which is how people and wildlife can share the same valleys,” said Scott Renyard, founder of The Green Channel. “Living with Wildlife answers it with real communities that have been working at it for years.”
Directed and produced by Leanna Allison, Living with Wildlife runs 23 minutes with camera and editing by Mike Quigley. The film features Jay Honeyman, Mike Gibeau, Stephen Herrero, Andreas Comeau, Pat and Ann Kamenka, Jon Jorgensen, Karsten Heuer, Melanie Percy, Lori Rissling Wynn, John Paczkowski, Dave Verhulst and Tyler McClaron, along with what the credits call “Amazing Canmore Volunteers” and “A Whole Bunch of Cool Canmore Kids!”
For a closer look at the highway crossings, Allison’s film Highway Wilding is also streaming on The Green Channel, along with her wolverine film Chasing a Trace.
Living with Wildlife is streaming now on The Green Channel, the environmental documentary streaming platform.
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State: British Columbia
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