If you were to find yourself on a desert island in the middle of the Pacific Ocean, you’re more likely to find a beach strewn with garbage than a pristeen paradise. Here, the movie Cast Away is re-edited to reflect the reality of the great garbage patch of the Pacific Ocean.

In October 2008, my Grandpa and I traveled from Glentworth, Saskatchewan to New York City. This film documents the places and some of the many stories my Grandpa told throughout the journey.

This video has become my most watched video on the Internet, but it’s funny because it’s not even uploaded in my own YouTube account – somebody I don’t even know uploaded it to their YouTube account, but I don’t mind, cause it’s spreading the message. As I write this, it has about 25,000 views, a 4.5 star rating, and about 25 comments. This isn’t a popularity contest, but results like this should encourage me to make more videos along these lines.

Original Video Description: I just heard recently for the first time of the North Pacific Gyre. Apparently, it is a huge collection of floating garbage covering twice the surface area of the state of Texas. It floats in the Pacific Ocean somewhere between Hawaii and California. All the garbage there is said to weigh more than 3.5 million tonnes. The thought that something like this might exist first came to me on an isolated beach on a small island named Ikema. Ikema Island is in the island chain of Okinawa. This island chain traces a line from the southern tip of Japan to the island of Taiwan. Directly north of Ikema Island is the peninsula of Korea. Further south is the Philippines …

I made this in late February 2007, three weeks after beginning life in Kamloops, BC, Canada. The video has been submitted into a video contest at the Kamloops Art Gallery with the theme, “The Place Where I Live.”

UPDATE: Happily, I ended up winning the contest that I submitted this video to (Mar. 18th, 2007). I also met some really good people at the event, including a few fine arts professors at the local university and various art gallery staff. A very good experience. Perhaps, it’s the first thing I’ve ever won since I won a drawing contest at a Cornwall seaside hotel resort when I was eight years old. I love the handmade, one-of-a-kind wall-plaque I got as a prize.