Local film company taking viewers to ‘Sea Class’

December 9, 2024

Beth Ryan of Inverness is featured in a six-part series about sea glass currently airing on Fibe TV 1 and the Fibe TV app.

“I had four boys under four, including twins, and it was pretty hectic when I was home all day with them,” Beth recalls. “My husband was a teacher, so when he’d get home from work, I’d just take off for a walk. I’d mostly walk on the beach. I’d go any time of year, and I just started picking up the sea glass.”

Beth and her colleagues at Cape Breton Film have produced a series of six 15-minute episodes of a television series called Sea Class, which began airing November 27 on Fibe TV 1 and on the Fibe TV app. A new episode is added each Wednesday, until all six episodes are available for viewing.

Cape Breton Film was born in 2018, when an ad was placed in the Inverness Oran newspaper, looking for people interested in forming a film cooperative.

“I have no background in film,” Beth explains. “I had done costumes and set design for River Hill Players theatre group. That’s why I went.”

“Twenty-one people showed up at that first meeting.”

The cooperative’s first project was Bòchan, a series of Cape Breton ghost stories, which featured the acting skills of several students at Dalbrae Academy in Mabou. Beth says she had a lot of fun with that project and was immediately hooked.

Cape Breton Film has regular meetings in which they throw around new ideas for projects. At a recent meeting Beth suggested doing something with sea glass collecting.

“When I first started, I never saw anyone else on the beach,” she remembers. “People thought I was crazy. Now you can hardly get through the beach for the people that are coming from everywhere picking glass.”

So, the group put a post on its Facebook page looking for anyone with an interest in sea glass.

“In one 24-hour period, we got almost 100 replies,” Beth says. “We had to shut it down. We couldn’t take anymore.”

The series was shot May through July of this year, and the crew visited beaches all over Cape Breton, including beaches in Inverness and Port Hood, talking to people about their passion for sea glass.

Beth says people viewing the shows will learn where to look for glass, how to look for glass, and where the glass originated.

“They’ll also learn about what people are doing with the glass,” she adds. “Some people just collect it in jars, but some people are turning it into beautiful, innovative art and jewellery.”

“They’ll learn about the value of the glass, as well. Certain colours are more valuable than others, and more rare.”

Beth says she was first attracted to the cobalt blue glass.

A hand holding a piece of seaglass up to the sun.

“There was a lot more glass back then,” she notes. “Now it’s a big deal if I find a piece of blue.”

“A lot of the blue glass would come from Vicks jars or Noxzema cream. The fishermen would be on the boat and used Noxzema for sunburn, or they had Bromo-Seltzer for upset stomach, and they’d just throw them overboard.”

While litter is still a problem in Inverness County, its much more plastic and less glass than it used to be. Beth says that has also made some types of sea glass a lot harder to find.

Beth says the series will also talk about why people pick sea glass. It’s not likely many of them are caring for four little boys under four, she laughs, but the people interviewed are no less passionate about their hobby.