Award-winning West Virginia director Justin Harris admits he didn’t mean to become a filmmaker.
An avid outdoor enthusiast, skier and whitewater kayaker, Justin lives in the highest concentration of whitewater in the country, located between Davis and Thomas, WV, which inspired him and some friends to create a YouTube channel to showcase the rare creeks that can be challenging for kayakers to catch.
“In Canaan Valley, you’re basically living in the mecca of whitewater kayaking here on the East Coast,” he explained. “We started knocking off a lot of creeks that people have been waiting 10 plus years to see on video. It gives people an idea of what they would be getting themselves into.”
Over the course of three years, it was a natural progression for Justin to start telling stories, highlighting outdoor recreation through Mountain River Media.
During Cheat Fest Weekend 2022, thanks to an abundance of rainfall, Justin was able to film Red Creek in the Dolly Sods Wilderness and wanted to tell the story of this evasive waterway.
“That is one that in a good year, you may see four groups of people going there, and in a year like this where it’s dry, nobody is going to go in there, so it’s extremely rare,” he said. Justin began researching and interviewing experts, and before he knew it, he had all the content and footage he needed for a short educational documentary called The Red Creek Sessions.
He published it online, and all the feedback Justin received was from folks telling him it was meant for film festivals, not YouTube.
“At the time, I had no idea what a film festival was, so I did the research, learned the system of how things go,” Justin said. “I applied to everything I could afford…”
That was in July 2022, and by the next year, The Red Creek Sessions had won 47 awards from various festivals, with Justin traveling the country on a three-month film tour.
“As I was out there, I learned that I don’t really do anything normally,” he said. “You’ve got all these people in the film world who are trying to follow a blueprint. I was just having fun! I was like, ‘I’m going to go out here and enjoy the moment.’ And people really embraced our attitude toward it at these film festivals.”
Once he arrived back home, Justin knew he wanted to make another film, this time something that would make an even greater impact in and for his beloved Appalachian region. He asked himself what story he wanted to help tell, and after bouncing around a few ideas, he landed on detailing the unique cross-country skiing ecosystem of White Grass in Tucker County, WV, operated by Chip Chase, who established it more than 40 years ago.
Because the White Grass ski area is situated across a federal wildlife refuge, a state park and private land, it’s not yet a given who it will be passed down to when the time comes, or if it will even be able to go on at all without Chip.
“Even as a whitewater kayaker, I can still say that my favorite place on Earth is not a river. It’s White Grass on a sunny day after 20 inches of snow,” Justin said. “So we started diving into that project. I thought I was just going to tell the story and the history, but we realized that the future of White Grass is like a giant question mark.”
A year and a half later, another feature length documentary, Freeland: A White Grass Story, was complete, and Justin submitted it to the same festivals he did in 2022 with The Red Creek Sessions. He’s toured the country a second time, recently winning big at the Maine Outdoor Film Festival, the largest East Coast outdoors film festival, and was even invited to a film fest in Hollywood – but he’s not done yet.
“The coolest part about this whole journey is I always planned to follow up the White Grass story with a film about the Blackwater,” he said. “The two tie in together.”
Both films explore how the Blackwater River connects two communities: skiers and kayakers. The lifeblood flowing down the ski slopes forms the rapids pushing kayakers and rafters to the ultimate adventure downstream. Yet, the river and the slopes are ephemeral. There are only a handful of days each season with optimal conditions, such as the right amount of rainfall, to allow for freely running the river. It’s the same for skiing at White Grass — it doesn’t snow all winter long, and those days with fresh powder are the most ideal.
“When the snow drains off White Grass, it melts into the Blackwater River,” he said. “So in the springtime, when we get a good White Grass day, and then the melt comes, we can literally kayak the exact same water that we were skiing on the day before. And that tie-in told the story of our film.”
The film, Freeland: A Blackwater Story, is about the history of the Blackwater kayaking community, featuring many of Justin’s whitewater mentors and paying homage to them.
“The guys who starred in the film are the originals who discovered these creeks,” he said. “Most people don’t know this, but there’s probably more legendary whitewater boaters from the 70s and 80s who live here than anywhere else in the world, and I get to hang out with all of them. That’s where this film came from. We have to tell these stories now, and that’s what we did. I’m really excited for people to start seeing this.”
Whereas the White Grass documentary is more lighthearted, this film is almost the inverse, as Justin was told repeatedly throughout the process that no one was talking enough about death in whitewater.
“The Blackwater is an extremely deadly river that is the pinnacle of mostly everybody’s kayaking career, if they even make it to that,” Justin said. “So we wanted to make a very contrasting film. White Grass is beautiful and light; Blackwater is dark and mysterious, and everything was telling us it’s a yin and yang contrast.”
It’s also an extremely personal film for Justin, who has lost four friends due to kayak-related drownings. Filmmaking is a give and take scenario; Justin said he puts his heart into it, and it takes a piece away from him each time.
“We wanted to make a film that really hit hard, especially with the younger kids in the kayaking community,” he said. “We’re seeing a lot of things happening in the kayaking community right now that are a concern, and I have way too long of a list of friends that are no longer with me because of kayaking.”
The film examines the impact of social media on the younger generation in whitewater and how safety is often put aside in favor of gaining followers.
“In a nutshell, they’re doing it all for the ‘gram,’” Justin said. “These kids are competing over the internet in a game of one-upping, but in this game, you can die.”
With technical and dangerous rapids, many career kayakers work for a decade or longer to take on the pinnacle Blackwater River. In times of drought, it becomes even more treacherous with hidden debris. The film serves as the perfect reminder of what can easily be forgotten, Justin said.
“Just being there is a big deal,” he said. “But these days, kids are getting on it after one or two years of kayaking, and the skill levels being seen are sloppy and careless and safety is very rough around the edges. All of this is a recipe for disaster. Plus, it’s been a bit of time since the last round of drownings, and people let their guard down. I’ve seen this cycle occur three or four times now in my career.”
But, like Freeland: A White Grass Story, even with its uncertainty, this film also tries to end on a positive note, focusing on the birth of the next generation in the state’s kayaking community. No matter the tone of a film, he wants it to have an uplifting ending.
“Instead of focusing a lot of it on the death at the end, I focused it on the fact that we have this baby boom going on in the kayaking community right now,” he said. “I’m not the only one. There were five of us that all had babies within one year, which was super cool. We were able to take all of these immense things going on in life — the worst and best of life — all there together in the film.”
Justin’s first two films are available on the Mountain River Media YouTube channel, with hopes of the Blackwater film, currently in the final stages of production, being published in the next year or so.
“I think we have a film that’s going to make a huge impact, and that’s all I care about,” Justin said. “I just care that people see this story, and that’s what I wanted in all three films.”
A self-proclaimed black sheep of the state’s film industry, Justin said he wants to continue filmmaking his way, but after the birth of his son last year, he’s ready for a bit of a break and to continue focusing on his day job as Media Director for Canaan Valley Resort.
“I definitely feel comfortable in understanding my role as a filmmaker, and that’s why it’s so important to pick stories that matter,” he said. “I feel like we’ve done that three times in a row; you have to pick stories that you have passion for, something that you have knowledge in but that you love. I think what made the White Grass film so successful and so good and why people related to it so much is we did it because we loved it.”
Originally from Richmond, Virginia, Justin said it’s like he now lives in a Hallmark movie, and he’s continuously inspired by his neighbors, those living in the hills of Appalachia, who are some of the best storytellers out there.
Finding true Appalachian stories and giving them a platform is a win-win for Justin and West Virginia, with his films encouraging tourism and further shedding the state in a positive light outside of the region.
“Life has fallen into place here, and I’ve embraced the small-town life like no other,” he said. “I’m a city boy, but I really think you can’t get that kind of genuine lifestyle in very many places in this country, and the mountains of West Virginia are one of those places that still exist.”
