Music Video: Holly Arntzen and Kevin Wright – 5ive Sisters

Direct link to YouTube video: https://youtu.be/tp1s7tAVxbs

 

From description:

5ive Sisters story by Holly Arntzen & Kevin Wright.

We moved to Crofton, BC a couple of years ago. Nice place, on a bluff overlooking the sea. The bluff lined by 5 old-growth Arbutus Trees… Holly would dub them, The 5ive Sisters. She started a little song about them… “Standing on a bluff overlooking the sea, 5ive Sisters watching me…” We never thought it would be a full song. It was just something that Holly sang at the house on the piano.

Then she heard about Hans Doliwa, a local, who had quite the story. He agreed to meet for coffee and tell it. You can hear parts of that interview in the intro of the video.

About 20 years ago, Hans was working in the pulp mills in Chemainus and Nanaimo on Vancouver Island. The pulp was put into bales and units and stacked to await shipment
out. One day, the machine that loads and moves the units was pushing a stack of them into place. A stack over 100 yards long. At the end of the stack, way down at the end, a guy sat to eat his lunch. The loader kept pushing and aligning the units into place until finally one got pushed off the end and landed on the guy. Hans and a fellow worker were there. In an adrenaline rush, Hans tried to lift the unit of pulp, weighing in at over 2000 lbs. The unit had the guy crushed right up to his shoulders. Hans heaved upwards enough so the other guy could pull him out. The guy lived.

After some time, the injured man went back to work… but Hans never did. His back was blown out for life after attempting to lift such huge weight. Years went by and Hans had spent the years in a wheelchair. Never working, and constantly battling to be compensated for his injuries.

In Crofton, we have the pleasure of watching raw logs go out to China, the States and elsewhere by giant ship load, right from our yard… as you can see by the footage in the
video. This an ongoing regular occurance. Hans happened to be one man who was just sick of watching this. Logs and jobs being given away. So one day he decided to block the
logging truck entrance to Shoal Island, the dump site for the logs. In his wheelchair, just him, and his dog. He stopped the trucks for less than an hour before he AND his dog got
hauled off by the police. About a year and half later… he did it again.

This song was written as a dedication to a man with a certain amount of bravery and an inner need to stand up for what is right. When you ask him… he doesn’t consider himself anything special, but to us, if more people had his attitude, there might be more positive change happening in this world.

We thought it was worth at least… a song.

Video shot and edited by Kevin Wright
Except studio performance shots by Bob Ennis
Clearcut photography by TJ Watt
Equipment – Panasonic TM900 HD Cam
Avid Studio and a Merlin Pocket Dolly