Planet in Focus International Environmental Film & Video Festival

If Farley Mowat invited you to visit, what would you do? Leanne Allison and Karsten Heuer knew Canada's storyteller through his books, activism, and through controversy . They couldn't imagine flying to see him. So they packed their 2-year old son Zev and dog Willow into an 18-foot canoe. Travelling 5,000 kilometers from Canmore, Alberta to Cape Breton, the family chose a route across the prairies, barren lands and the Maritimes. Mapping settings from many of their hero's beloved classics, they paddled, walked and sailed to create a film that revisits literary landscapes and reassures us the Canadian wilderness still exists. On the way, they frame breathtaking vistas of our country far from well-traveled roads and capture intimate family moments with a whittled canoe, rhyming games by the campfire and the bugs in the pants. Farley Mowat once wrote: "I'll never forget how it felt, a place without walls. Of being in an open, unfettered world." This family will never forget this trip, and neither will you.