It doesn’t seem like there’s much Lower Nicola resident Sunshine O’Donovan can’t do.

The star of locally shot Shana: The Wolf’s Music, a film about a young aboriginal girl who loses her mother, O’Donovan has now shown her talents in writing.

She won first place in the junior writing category for ages 14 to 18 in Historica Canada’s aboriginal arts and stories competition for her short story titled Hell’s Gate. The story is a piece of historical fiction that comments on the impact humans have had on the environment using the 1913 rockslides in the Fraser River Canyon at Hell’s Gate as a backdrop.

One of the worst environmental disasters in B.C.’s history, the rockslides were caused by railway construction and cut off the annual salmon migration to spawning beds up the Fraser River.

It nearly wiped out salmon runs in the river and caused starvation amongst the local First Nations.

The inspiration for O’Donovan’s story was derived from her concern for the future of salmon, and what would happen if they were destroyed as a result of human activity.

“I thought about aboriginal past and I brainstormed on it until I fell upon the topic of the Hell’s Gate rockslide and I was interested in how it affected the fish, but how it also affected the natives,”O’Donovan said.

She then began doing research on the topic, including talking with elders and a fishery worker.

The award ceremony for the aboriginal arts and stories contest was held in Toronto back on June 9.

O’Donovan travelled there to receive her award, and was toured around Toronto along with other artists in the competition.

She placed first out of some 80 writers in her age category across the country.

In her story, O’Donovan provides a window into First Nations culture.

She begins by describing the death of a father character who was out fishing with a dip net.

O’Donovan herself has never been dip netting, but said she gathered the information from a documentary.

She describes the main character Shpetzen’s first encounter with a white man while picking berries with her grandmother for the winter.

The railroad construction leads to large rocks falling into the river, which block the salmon from spawning. First Nations try to save the fish by packing them along the canyon walls and releasing them upstream — which is historically accurate.

Shpetzen, her mother, sister and baby brother depart for the Okanagan to find a place to winter where there are fish, as their local food supplies are dwindling as winter comes, but their grandmother is too sick to travel and is left behind.

Along the way, Shpetzen’s mother leave’s her baby boy in a tree hoping someone picks him up and cares for him because she cannot continue feeding him.

O’Donovan said that is a true story she heard from her own mother’s stepfather.

As part of O’Donovan’s first place win, the story will be published in Canada’s History Magazine.

“I’m just very happy that this story can be shared to a bigger audience because I think this is a very important subject and we need to talk more about what we’re doing to the environment,” O’Donovan said.

She said that conversation should surround how people can better manage the environment.

Historica Canada is a non-profit that has programs, such as this competition, meant to promote Canadian history. The organization is probably best known for creating the Heritage Minute T.V. spots.

Entries in its competition from aboriginal peoples across Canada are accepted year-round and the goal is to provide a platform for young First Nations, Métis and Inuit artists to share their culture and heritage through literary and visual arts, Historica Canada program officer Eric Wright said.

The competition has a wide age range of 11 to 29, handing out awards for writing and arts, with age groups separated into three categories.

O’Donovan said she hopes that from this story others will understand that people are connected to the earth and need to ensure it’s respected and kept safe.

“We need to make sure that we leave this planet for our next generation,” she said.