Video: Sun Dog – A Skier and His Dog Share a Love of the Mountains

Video: Sun Dog – A Skier and His Dog Share a Love of the Mountains

A Skier and His Dog Share a Love of the Mountains

Posted by Emily Nuchols on December 16, 2014 

 

It’s no secret: We love our dogs. And I would venture to say that people in the mountains really love their dogs. Sun Dog, the latest film from Sturgefilm and DPS Cinematic, captures this unique and joyful bond between skier Santiago Guzman and his dog Conga in the rugged and wild peaks overlooking Bariloche, Argentina.

We caught up with filmmaker Ben Sturgulewski to hear a little more about the story of Sun Dog.

Adventure: You didn’t have the best conditions when you got to Bariloche. How do you deal with tough and variable conditions when you’re on the line to make a film?

Ben Sturgulewski: When you’re dealing with tough conditions, it’s all about the story. You just have to approach it from a different angle, a unique aspect that you may not have thought of before. We decided to go to Refugio Frey because it’s such a beautiful and iconic place. Even with the conditions what they were, I knew we could go there and it would be a beautiful backdrop for whatever story we found there.

A: How did the story of Conga and Santiago come about? How did the story develop while you were out there?

BS: I had no idea what the story would be for this film before we got there. I’d just met Santi and Conga and I didn’t know either of them. Our first experience was when we went to the ski resort, and he just picked her up and sat on the lift. I immediately saw a really cool connection between them. The next day, we went to the hut and I got thrown into the backcountry with the two of them and a four-hour skin up to Frey through some seriously icy and rough conditions. Even before we got there, Conga was proving to be pretty badass, and I was immediately impressed. By the time we reached the hut, it was clear that I had found my story with these two. They shared a really cool, special bond.

Photograph by Ben Sturgulewski

A: What is it about mountain people and their dogs?

BS: Dogs just have this energy, and Conga’s energy was so infectious right from the beginning. So much stoke and happiness to be out there. When we got to the hut, conditions were bad. We had no snow and it was super windy, so we were bummed. But then we went outside with Conga, and she was just so stoked to be there that we caught on as well. It’s so simple, and it’s good to be reminded of that kind of pure and childlike enjoyment of the mountains.

A: You’ve been to Refugio Frey before and dealt with similar conditions. How was it going back this time?

BS: I actually shot another segment for a ski film up there. When I was working with Sweetgrass Productions, we spent a few days at Frey, shooting Solitaire. It was kind of funny. It was a similar kind of bad spring conditions, but we were able to create a really cool story then too. The first time we constructed the story around this cat named Chaz. This time it was a dog. Even though we were faced with super tough conditions, both times we found a really cool story around an animal.

A: At the end of the film, you dedicate it in memory of Chaz the cat. What happened to Chaz?

BS: Chaz was the cat we featured in Solitaire. They sort of have a rotating posse of cats at Frey. When we went back this time, Chaz wasn’t there anymore. He had disappeared into the hills. It’s kind of sad, so I decided to give him some love in this film.

A: You’ve got a pretty short timeframe to put together these films in one season. How is that working out?

BS: It’s been crazy, but totally rewarding. It usually takes weeks or even months to put together a ski segment, but we only had three days in bad conditions and somehow we were able to create a full segment that I think is more entertaining than your average ski porn. To top it off, I edited this piece in a week. So in less than two weeks… despite all craziness and short timeframe, I think it’s my favorite episode.

A: You spun off from your former company, Sweetgrass Productions, and started Sturgefilm this year. How’s that going for you?

BS: Honestly, it’s been awesome. Really frenetic and busy, but awesome. I can do exactly what I want to do right now, which is a blessing and a curse. I’m taking on almost everything that comes my way, and there’s a lot of pressure to get it all done, but at the same time I’m challenging myself and growing as a filmmaker. Being on my own allows me to be true to myself and my creative vision in a really undiluted and pure way. I love collaborating as well, and I’m constantly working and sharing with others, but I’m really digging going after my stories in the way I want to tell them right now.

Watch a Green Comet Streak Across the Sky for Christmas

Comet Lovejoy is brightening faster than expected, putting on a show you can see for yourself this holiday season.

This illustration shows comet Lovejoy's close encounter with the globular cluster M79 on the night of December 28, 2014.

Just in time for the holidays, the skies are serving up a special cosmic gift: a brightening comet that may not have been in our part of the solar system for nearly 12,000 years.

Discovered only this past August, comet Lovejoy (C/2014 Q2) is now quickly brightening to naked-eye visibility as it moves from the deep southern sky into prime viewing location for observers throughout the Northern Hemisphere. The comet is already putting on a Christmas show, glowing green thanks to molecules that glow when hit by the sun's solar wind.

This icy visitor to the inner solar system was first spotted by its namesake, Terry Lovejoy, an Australian astronomer using a common backyard telescope with only an eight-inch mirror. He spotted the comet while it was still a very faint 15th magnitude.

The comet wasn't predicted to become visible with the unaided eye until late January or February 2015. But comets can be unpredictable, with chaotic surface activity as they heat up and melt while nearing the sun during orbit. Since summer, the comet's brightness has shot up by hundreds of times.

This diagram shows the orbit and location of comet Lovejoy on Christmas week in relation to the orbits of Earth and its neighboring planets. Note that the comet is approaching the inner solar system nearly perpendicular to Earth's orbit; that's the reason the comet is appearing to switch from a Southern to Northern Hemisphere object in the sky over the next week or so.

In fact, some observers in the Southern Hemisphere are reporting that it has brightened to magnitude 6, meaning that it has technically reached naked-eye levels already. It's now an easy target to find with binoculars, showing up as a distinct hazy ball.

And if comet Lovejoy continues its current course of brightening, astronomers say it may even plateau at magnitude 4.1 in mid-January, which would make it just barely visible to the unaided eye viewing it from light-polluted city suburbs.

Time to break out those shiny new binoculars and telescopes and take a gander at comet Lovejoy hanging low in the late-night southeastern sky.

As of December 21, comet-watchers using large binoculars under dark skies were reporting on an online comet-observing forum seeing a hint of a very faint tail sweeping about 5 to 6 degrees back from the comet's coma, the hazy cloud around the main body—that's about equal to ten full moon disks side-by-side in the sky. To see comet Lovejoy's path in the sky, check out this nice printable finder chart.

To spot the tail yourself, you'll first want to try using averted vision, an observing technique using peripheral vision to bring out details in a faint object. But hopes are that the sky show will get easier to see throughout the holiday period into the New Year.

This sky chart shows comet Lovejoy parked next to the globular cluster M79 (also shown in telescope view) on the night of December 28, 2014.

See for Yourself

During Christmas week, the best way to glimpse the comet is using binoculars as it travels through the low southern constellation Columba, the Dove, about 30 degrees south of the constellation Orion.

Wait until late night, near or after local midnight, for the comet to rise in the southeastern sky and away from the hazy horizon. Helping your hunt around Christmas Day, it should be passing some 18 degrees to the lower right of the brightest star in the sky, Sirius. That separation in the sky is equal to the width of two fists side-by-side.

Also not to be missed, as comet Lovejoy continues to climb higher in the northern sky it will offer a pretty photo opportunity. On December 28 and 29 it will be posing with the stunning globular star cluster Messier 79 in the constellation Lepus, the Rabbit. Amazing to think that this city of stars lies approximately 40,000 light-years from Earth, compared with comet Lovejoy's 4.4 light-minutes distance.

Stay tuned for more updates in the New Year.

Happy hunting!

Andrew Fazekas

for National Geographic

Published December 24, 2014

The importance of the Arts

1. The arts teach children to make good judgments about qualitative relationships.
Unlike much of the curriculum in which correct answers and rules prevail, in the arts, it
is judgment rather than rules that prevail.

2. The arts teach children that problems can have more than one solution
and that questions can have more than one answer.

3. The arts celebrate multiple perspectives.
One of their large lessons is that there are many ways to see and interpret the world.

4. The arts teach children that in complex forms of problem solving
purposes are seldom fixed, but change with circumstance and opportunity. Learning in the arts requires the ability and a willingness to surrender to the unanticipated possibilities of the work as it unfolds.

5. The arts make vivid the fact that neither words in their literal form nor numbers exhaust what we can know. The limits of our language do not define the limits of our cognition.

6. The arts teach students that small differences can have large effects.
The arts traffic in subtleties.

7. The arts teach students to think through and within a material.
All art forms employ some means through which images become real.

8. The arts help children learn to say what cannot be said.

When children are invited to disclose what a work of art helps them feel, they must reach into their poetic capacities to find the words that will do the job.

9. The arts enable us to have experience we can have from no other source
and through such experience to discover the range and variety of what we are capable of feeling.

10. The arts' position in the school curriculum symbolizes to the young
what adults believe is important.