My Work
Trouble in the Headwaters
The Narwhal (2025)
UBC hydrology professor and researcher Dr. Younes Alila takes us to the headwaters of the Kettle River Basin to uncover how clearcut logging has led to destructive flooding in Grand Forks, B.C.
Pressure Cooker
CBC Podcasts (2023)
A six-part CBC podcast about two misfits who are arrested for planting pressure cooker bombs at the BC legislature. They have no idea they're at the centre of a sprawling anti-terror operation by undercover cops and the wildest
case of police entrapment in Canadian history.
Water Logged
Seeker (2021)
In 2018, a catastrophic flood
devastated the City of Grand Forks, BC. This short documentary investigates the impacts of this event on the residents and what factors led to this flood being as destructive as it was. Screened at Jackson Wild + Planet in Focus.
Nuchatlaht Nation Title Case
Web videos (2020)
Video storytelling and fundraising for the Nuchatlaht Nation's title and rights court case for their territory on Nootka Island. In full collaboration with the Nation's legal team and allies, our videos helped raise awareness and more than $50,000 for their legal fees.
Up Schmidt Creek
Short doc (2019)
A short indie doc about a field excursion into Schmidt Creek in Ma'amtagila territory, where some of the last old-growth forest on Eastern Vancouver Island was being targeted for logging by BC Timber Sales, despite evidence of Indigenous bark stripping (CMTs).
Wildwood Ecoforest
The Narwhal (2019)
A short video piece for The Narwhal about Wildwood Ecoforest, a small woodlot on Southern Vancouver Island that was selectively logged for decades by eco-forester Merv Wilkinson, showing the world what sustainable forestry truly looks like. A small group now uses the forest to teach and carry on his legacy.
Heartwood: Part 1
Mining Old-Growth
Web series (2017)
Part 1 of this crowdfunded doc looks at the plight of the last old-growth forests on the west coast of BC, what that means for these endangered ecosystems and for the Indigenous people who rely on them to practice their cultures.
Heartwood: Part 2
Cut & Run
Web series (2017)
Part 2 of this crowdfunded doc looks at the mechanized practices of industrial logging in BC, which is destroying ecosystems, shedding forest jobs, and exporting massive volumes of raw, unprocessed logs overseas, with little thought for the future of the resource or workers.
For Our Daughters
Create Change Foundation (2015)
A 1-hour documentary produced for Create Change Foundation about their girls' education program in Northern Ghana and a speaking tour featuring four of their students who traveled from Ghana to Canada to raise funds to send more girls to school back home.
The Hollow Tree
1-hour doc (2012)
My first long-form documentary about the restoration of the Big Hollow Tree in Stanley Park – Vancouver's oldest and most iconic tourist destination. When a wind storm almost knocks it down a band of specialists engage in a years long effort to stabilize this massive old cedar for the public.
BIO
Daniel J. Pierce is a filmmaker, journalist and story editor based in Vancouver, B.C. Daniel has been making documentaries for more than 15 years, with a decade-long obsession with BC forestry. He’s raised $50,000 through crowdfunding, garnered hundreds of thousands of online views, and his work has been published on the CBC, The Narwhal, Vice and Seeker.
Daniel's first long-form documentary, The Hollow Tree, was broadcast on Knowledge Network and CBC Documentary. He went on to direct and produce a multi-part web series called Heartwood, about the old-growth rainforests of coastal BC, and is continuing with his latest film Trouble in the Headwaters.
Dan co-wrote, produced and hosted a six-part CBC podcast called Pressure Cooker, which was nominated for a Webby and named one of Apple’s Top Podcasts of 2023. He also works as a story editor in non-fiction television, including Knowledge Network's Transplant Stories and Wildfire.
CONTACT
For story editing and video production, email me at:
daniel (at) ramshackle (dot) ca
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