Health & Fitness
Part II: Greater Bonney Lake Historical Society to host the Milotte Wildlife Film Festival
GBLHS will host a FREE wildlife film festival showing Academy Award films from Bonney Lake residents Alfred & Elma Milotte.
MWLFF – a wildlife film festival is coming soon!
MWLFF is not a film festival in the true sense of the word: The Greater Bonney Lake Historical Society (GBLHS) has a program that will feature three award winning Disney wildlife films photographed by Alfred and Elma Milotte, Seal Island, Bear Country and Beaver Valley. All three movies are from the late 1940’s and 1950's and were the start of Disney’s True Life Adventure Series. It's going to be a lot of fun for the whole family and it's FREE! GBLHS hopes this year’s festival is the start of an annual film festival event right here in Bonney Lake, focusing exclusively on wildlife films that are created, produced and developed by artists from around the world.
Who are the Milottes and why is the festival starting with them? Alfred and Elma Milotte purchased land on Elhi Hill in either 1958, or 1959 and started building what would become their “Island in the Sky” in 1959. Their 4000 square foot studio/house was situated to take advantage of the views of Mount Rainier to the east, the valley, Tacoma, and the Olympics to the west. Even with these fantastic views, “Island in the Sky” was still heavily forested and provided the Milottes with ample opportunity to continue photographing wildlife while no longer having to leave the comfort of home. Some of their writings (which GBLHS is in the process of cataloguing) indicate that they had bear, cougar, fox, deer, mice, squirrels, and skunk living almost outside their door. After they passed away, their “Island in the Sky” became a new development known as “Sky Island."
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The event will be held Saturday, October 20, 2012 between the hours of 11:00 am and 4:00 pm at the Bonney Lake Justice Center, 9002 Main Street. So mark your calendars.
Check out our website at www.MWLFF.org.
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Yes it’s FREE, however, GBLHS will accept donations during the event, and we’re looking for sponsors to help defray the expense for the festival and to assist GBLHS in our efforts to preserve the recently received collection of Milotte memorabilia.
You can be involved: GBLHS is a 501 (c)3 with a goal of educating the public about the history of the Bonney Lake area. All meetings are normally held the last Monday of the month at the Bonney Lake library. Our next meeting is slated for Monday, July 30th at 7:00 pm in the library meeting room.
More information will be provided in future installments of the GBLHS blog.