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Each summer, Leif Haugen travels to the Flathead National Forest in northwestern Montana to look for fires. Living atop a mountain three miles from the Canadian border, he spends his days alone, with only a remote radio for company. In The Lookout, Leif explains the joys of solitude, and the wonder of independent living, in one of the most breathtaking natural landscapes in the US. A quiet portrait of a quiet place, the film is an introduction to an increasingly uncommon job, and a reminder why the forests and vast skies of the American West matter.
Director: Brian Bolster
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Environmental history
In Kazakhstan, ‘atomic lakes’ still scar the landscape decades after Soviet nuclear tests
13 minutes
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Nature and landscape
‘A culture is no better than its woods’ – what our trees reveal about us, by W H Auden
5 minutes
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Meaning and the good life
Why Orwell urged his readers to celebrate the spring, cynics be damned
11 minutes
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Earth science and climate
Images carved into film form a haunting elegy for a disappearing slice of Earth
3 minutes
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Nature and landscape
California’s landscapes provide endless inspiration for a woodcut printmaker
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Animals and humans
Join seabirds as they migrate, encountering human communities along the way
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Fairness and equality
There’s a dirty side to clean energy in the metal-rich mountains of South Africa
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Biology
‘Save the parasites’ may not be a popular rallying cry – but it could be a vital one
11 minutes
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Evolution
The many ways a lizard tongue sticks, grasps, pinches and plops – in slo-mo
6 minutes