23 Aug Not just another silly ALS bucket challenge video

Employees of Seaside Communications,* the Cape Breton company that built what is thought to be the world’s largest fixed wireless Internet system,** took the bucket challenge yesterday in support of fellow employee Darryl Bach, an IT systems administrator who has been living with ALS since 2011.

Seaside videographer Jason LeFrense, whose videos about the late Ryan Gillis and the Weird Bread Troupe have won wide praise, put together this account of Bach’s life with the illness, and the friends and co-workers who gathered to cheer him on yesterday.

It’s Darryl who makes the video so compelling, avoiding slogans but instead giving a matter-of-fact account of what the disease is like, how it came into his life, and the steps he has taken to remain in charge of his affairs while ALS takes charge of his body.

* Disclosure: I have done consulting work for Seaside since 2008.

** Seaside’s fixed wireless Internet service, built under the Broadband for Rural Nova Scotia project, provides Internet access across more than 30,000 square kilometres of highly varied Nova Scotia landscape. The territory comprises rural portions of 10 counties (HRM, Cumberland, Colchester, Pictou, Antigonish, Guysborough, Inverness, Victoria, Richmond, and CBRM). Many fixed wireless networks have more customers, but we know of none that spans such a large geographical area.