Downloaded from YTS.MX
[***]
Official YIFY movies site: YTS.MX
[fire crackling]
[***]
[news montage] ...study is revealing
some alarming realizations about our own modern world.
Today was pretty much as bad as it could get.
...for a public inquiry into the deaths of Aboriginal women.
Ottawa is resisting,
but the provinces are looking to turn up the pressure.
The biggest issue for them is depression and anxiety...
[***]
[Dianne] The world had stopped making sense.
For all the benefits of modern society,
so much had been lost...
and I was feeling lost too, you know,
and full of anger and disappointment,
so I just wanted to be alone in nature for a while,
get away from the news, and the relationships,
and money...
and I needed a new film project...
...so I left my home and my life behind.
No camera gear. No food.
Not too heavy, though, so I can still fit more.
[Dianne] ...and I set out to make a documentary
on the longest trail in the world.
[***]
♪ I don't want to wait anymore
♪ I'm tired of looking for answers ♪
♪ Take me some place where there's music ♪
♪ And there's laughter
♪ I don't know if I'm scared of dying ♪
♪ But I'm scared of living too fast, too slow ♪
♪ Regret, remorse, hold on
♪ No, no, I gotta go
♪ There's no starting over No new beginnings ♪
♪ Time races on
♪ You just gotta keep on keeping on ♪
[Dianne] The Trans Canada Trail begins here
on an old and ancient rock called Newfoundland.
The trail connects three oceans.
There are 24,000 kilometres of trails,
and I'm gonna try to travel a continuous line
from one end of the continent to the other.
The plan is to do this the old way.
No motors.
I'm gonna hike, bike, snowshoe,
cross-country ski, and paddle a canoe.
At least, that's the idea.
I'm psyched to start this adventure.
It's totally insane, actually.
It's 487 different water and land trails.
I'm really ready to let go of this darkness,
so I'm going east to west,
because I want to follow the sun back home.
I don't know what I'm going to find out there,
but what I'm searching for is a different story.
Pack the almonds.
I got no place for any of this.
This one's already full.
I don't know how to do this, man.
There's no space!
[Dianne] I'm getting some help
from some of my friends along the way
to drop off some supplies, or a canoe, or a bike...
[chuckling]
I don't think I can take the wraps for that.
[Dianne] ...but I'm going to be doing
most of the trail by myself.
This is my bike, Merlin, the Wizard, I call him.
He's 40 years old,
and he's the younger one in our relationship.
I've got four panniers
to fit everything I'm bringing into.
How the hell am I supposed to do that?
Just so I can find everything,
I've decided that each bag will be a room in the house,
so that's the bedroom,
kitchen,
studio,
the clothes closet.
I'll strap the tent to the back of the bike
with the tripod,
and I'll put my quick-access items
like bear spray, cell phone, GPS...
on the front of my handlebars.
[straining]
Okay, here we go.
[***]
♪ I've got a job
♪ I explore
♪ I follow every little whiff
[Dianne] I haven't got it all figured out,
but the great thing about a trail
is you just have to follow the path,
and it tells you which way to go.
[***]
♪ Looking for a place to happen ♪
♪ Making stops along the way
[Dianne] The first 988 kilometres
follows an old rail line
across the middle of Newfoundland.
I thought this was gonna be the easy part,
but it's a rough ride.
[grunting]
Unlike a lot of other people
who do journeys like this,
I'm actually not an extreme athlete
in any way, shape, or form...
but I make extreme films.
Watch out! Just get ready to go.
[Dianne] I made documentaries in Canada's high Arctic,
and I filmed a documentary on Mount Everest,
so making a film on the world's longest trail
seems like a natural fit,
and it has never been done.
[timer beeping]
It's one thing to film other people's adventures.
It's an altogether different thing to try to film my own,
so I'm gonna be getting some help with some friends,
and I'm gonna be hiring the occasional drone operators,
but the bulk of the filming
will be on me and my four cameras.
[Shelley] She was always into different things,
not a typical thing that every other girl or... we were into.
She was outside the box, always.
My name is Shelley Murray.
I'm Dianne's first cousin.
I drove out, brought some water, bike grease,
duct tape...
...and this.
I really want her to connect.
And gummy bears!
I've seen her eating them.
[groaning]
[Dianne] I have not gone in ten days
what I thought I could do in three...
so I have burnt my schedule.
I have no idea how long
this journey is going to take me,
but I'm gonna stop measuring it.
Today, I'm gonna let my dog, Lily's, ashes go.
After 16 years of living together,
she died before I left.
There's a pond here, and Lily loved ponds.
My marriage had ended a few years ago,
but after Lily's death,
it was clear there was nothing holding me to one spot anymore.
There's a lot of fears I'm gonna have to--
to confront on this journey,
and the first one is just sleeping alone
out here in my tent.
You know, a woman alone in the woods?
I feel pretty vulnerable,
and there's no lock on a tent door.
[moving inside tent]
[***]
[woman] We seen a person on the trail,
on a bicycle, by theirself,
so when we came back, there was a tent
on the side of the trail with a bicycle,
and I said, "You got to go back.
I need to know what they're doing here
by their self in a tent on the side of the trail."
She was in need of a lot of things.
I think the shoe was the best one.
The shoe.
The whole side was out of them,
so we got the glue.
- Oh! Sorry... - Oh, my God!
We didn't know how we were going to get
that much weight on it,
so Ed comes up with the idea...
Back up!
Slow, slow, slow, slow, slow... stop!
We parked the truck on the shoe, yeah.
God damn, if that don't work, nothing will!
It did work.
- Look. - [laughter]
Right on.
Then we went to that kitchen party.
[***]
You got her a couple tents...
A couple of tents.
[Dianne] Fuck, man. I'm fucked.
[Dianne] Got a new tent.
- [rain pouring] - Uh-oh.
This is tent number three.
[groaning]
I lost my tent.
Must have fallen off the back of my bike.
This is getting a little embarrassing.
I'm failing camping school.
Unfortunately, last night, one of the tent poles broke,
and I got a couple of days
before I can deal with it in any permanent way.
Sometimes it feels like
we just lost the heart in the story.
We used to live in a society.
Now we live in an economy.
[rattling]
[soft singing]
[Dianne] Three months before I left on my trip,
I went up to Haida Gwaii for a film festival,
and while I was there,
I met a traditional Indigenous Knowledge Keeper
named Vern Williams.
Well, the trail was built
to celebrate Canada's 150th birthday,
but the story I was really interested in telling
started thousands of years ago,
so I asked Vern
how I could honour the ancestors of this land
as I travelled across it.
[Vern exhaling] Okay... focus.
[breathes deeply]
This means a lot to me,
and I want it to go on this journey with you,
and when things mean so much to you,
it has to hurt when you're giving it away.
This is myself letting it go.
So that's a gift to you.
[Dianne] Háw'aa, Vern.
[Vern] We have been here forever,
honouring Earth the way it was,
and we fight for the things that we need to,
and Mother Earth's worth fighting for.
I'll never give up hope.
[Dianne] I will carry this feather on my journey,
and I will hold space
and respect the ancestors of this land.
[Vern] Háw'aa.
Now you can smudge it.
Smudging and cleansing is what's gonna help ground you.
[Dianne] I'll come back and see you when I'm done.
[Vern] That'd be incredible.
- Háw'aa. - Háw'aa.
Day 50.
I hate crushed rock.
[***]
The trail continues now in Cape Breton.
This area is known as Unama'kik
by the land's oldest ancestors, the Mi'kmaq people.
The Bras d'Or Lake is an inland sea,
and the water trails are the most ancient trails.
♪ Here I go down memory lane
♪ I'm always sinking with the ship that way ♪
♪ But every time I lay my eyes on that hull ♪
♪ I slip to the bottom and I don't need nothing ♪
I've done some canoe and kayak overnight trips on my own,
but I've never done anything like this,
and I'm packing a little fear.
It's a long time ago now, but I almost drowned in a kayak.
I got pinned underwater, and I couldn't breathe.
You know, the water didn't look that dangerous that day.
Dangers don't always look dangerous out here on the water,
but they are...
so as I paddle around the lake,
my plan is to always be swimming distance to the shore.
♪ And now I'm sailing away
♪ I don't need a home
♪ Don't need a lover
♪ I'll be out on my own
♪ Come hell or high water
Tent number five.
Getting it broken in in Cape Breton.
It says "unisex."
I'm not quite sure what that has to do with a tent, but...
Well, I may have some concerns for tent number five.
I don't know.
Feather has been a real teacher for me on this trip,
because when Feather looks rough,
it generally means I'm not looking too good myself,
and that I need some nurturing.
I'm really grateful for this companion.
Just got beached here, uh, after paddling two hours.
It's a southwest wind, so I almost made it.
I just got to the point,
and it just slammed me right into the shore.
Actually, uh... almost rolled over for the first time.
[sizzling]
The land is embedding itself into me.
Every sip of water...
every bite of food...
the crunch of a sand pebble in my mouth,
in the crevices of my fingernails,
in the scalp of my head.
I called my dad the other day,
and, uh, it was actually really interesting.
He's like, "I guess it doesn't really matter
what's happening in the news anymore."
And I'm like, "Yeah, unless you got a hurricane
or weather warning for me." [chuckling]
Yeah, it really doesn't.
I actually haven't even looked at the news
in, like, I don't know... months since I left now.
What matters... yeah, is temperature.
It's wind.
It's what's the water surface doing?
And animal prints in the mud.
Like, who am I sharing my space with right now?
Getting taken out the wrong way here.
Fuck.
I've lost control of the canoe.
It's being pulled out.
[groaning]
Fuck. This could be a riptide.
I don't like this at all.
Fight it!
Fuck...
I can do this.
Listen to your brain.
Fuck.
Just get me close enough so I can swim to shore.
So I got sucked out by these waves.
See how they're coming towards me right now?
They pushed me away from that shore
and into the middle of the strait,
and I really, really, really thought
I was gonna roll over.
[Dianne] There's still 8,000 kilometres
of water paddles on this journey,
so there's a lot more I need to figure out.
Now this water has my full respect.
I can't believe it's been 40 days
that I've been paddling on this lake...
[cheering]
...and I'm totally blown away
that somehow the Grand Chief has heard of my journey,
and that him and his family are gonna be greeting me.
What a total honour, really, you know?
After everything that's happened...
Thanks, guys.
[Dianne] ...between settlers
and Indigenous people in this country...
- Hello! - Hi.
[Dianne] ...this is what grace looks like.
- Grand Chief Ben Sylliboy. - I know, it's an honour, sir.
Nice to meet you. Nice to be on your land.
- I want to give you a gift. - Oh, thank you.
Thank you very much.
What is the meaning of We'koqma'q?
We'koqma'q, head of the bay.
Oh, so Eskasoni is the tail...
Yeah, that's the start of the Bras d'Or lake here.
Yeah, and this is the head?
Well, I came in through the back!
[laughter]
I had no idea, I came in through the back!
- You came in like the white man. - [laughter]
What else is new?
[camera shutter snapping]
[Dianne] You know, it's funny, actually.
When I left on this journey,
I thought travelling the old way was travelling without a motor,
but what I just learned
from my friends in the Mi'kmaq community
is that the old way isn't my method of travel.
It's what I connect with when I travel...
and they told me
with every stroke of the paddle in the water,
to say, "The water is sacred. The water is sacred."
And with every step on the earth,
"The earth is sacred. The earth is sacred."
That's the old way,
travelling with respect and reverence
for what sustains life.
Whoa!
Hi. I think you're beautiful.
You're sacred.
Mind if I lie here with you a while?
Today is a pretty bad day, man.
I'm feeling pretty deflated.
Like, I feel like a total fool out here.
I've lost five tents, you know?
I got swept out into open water...
and now I'm lost.
I'm on these back roads.
There's no signs,
so I have no idea where I'm going right now.
It's, like, what the hell am I doing back here?
[panting]
Oh, man, the ground's fucking wet, man.
There's no place to set up a tent.
Fuck!
[grunting] I'm lost.
I see lights!
This is so not good.
Oh!
[groaning]
[Brad] And I was wondering who would be out on a bicycle
on a day like today?
And we kept going and going,
and everywheres we went, here was the tracks...
and on top of the mountain,
who do we come across but Dee?
Pretty wet. Pretty cold. Pretty tired.
[Dianne] * Hallelujah!
[laughter]
[Brad] So we offered to give her supper
and give her a place to stay for the night
and get her clothes dried and warmed up.
They were calling for 30 to 40 centimetres of rain,
which we probably got,
high winds, which we did get.
It was pretty nasty.
She would have been in for a long, long night.
[Dianne] I think I would have been
in a lot of trouble here tonight.
I think tomorrow we'll...
we drop you off at the swinging bridge,
or what used to be the swinging bridge,
and you'll be on the straight and narrow.
[Dianne] Right on!
Well, I have huge gratitude for both of you.
Thank you so much,
and for the deer meat, and potatoes,
and I haven't gotten to the pie yet,
but I'm gonna work my way there.
[laughing]
[Dianne] Those sweet guys...
I was totally terrified of them when I met them in the dark
because I was already afraid,
and everything I was looking at
was through the lens of that fear.
When you read the news,
you think the whole world's full of psychopaths,
but it's not.
I'm remembering, it's full of kind people.
I'm going more remote now, for a while.
This next section's gonna take me about three months,
and this is my first winter camping.
I think hypothermia is my-- my greatest threat out here.
One of the effects of hypothermia is drowsiness,
and you can potentially fall asleep
and just never wake up,
so I'm gonna be having a lot of dates
with my, uh, hot water bottle at night.
[***]
♪ Black night
♪ Mystic morning
[Dianne] After this time in nature,
I'm really starting to feel a sense
of connection, reconnection, to that web of life...
...and I really feel like I'm just myself.
There's no one to perform for out here.
You just feel the interconnection of all things.
Got nailed by snow last night.
You can see just the pile right there.
That's just the drift that's built up
on the outside of my door.
Eventually we'll go outside,
but for now, I'm just boiling some snow.
[chuckling]
Before I left, I was worried, you know?
What happens if I meet a mean person, or mean animal?
But that just hasn't happened...
and so those fears are starting to go away.
Every time I paddle a lake or a river,
I research the water
to make sure the water is safe enough
for me to filter and drink.
The research brought me to Cecilia Brooks,
a woman also known here as the Water Grandmother.
She's super cool
because she has both a background in science,
in terms of the biology and chemistry of water.
She also has a background
in traditional Indigenous knowledge.
[Cecilia] The river, she speaks,
because when there's an imbalance,
you will see it.
We've forgotten to listen.
We've lost our salmon, for all intents and purposes,
in the St. John River...
and salmon is integral to who we are.
So what do we do? You know?
So yes, she speaks for herself.
Treat her bad, and she's gonna treat us bad.
It comes back, right?
So we have no fish. We have no salmon.
That's sad.
This used to be the river
where my father said,
"There were so many fish,
we could walk on the backs of the fish."
For the way agriculture has come in,
forestry practices,
they're cutting things down,
the waters aren't as cool as they used to be...
Indigenous people are asking
that Indigenous knowledge be included
alongside science,
oftentimes that the Indigenous knowledge
can inform the science, to help.
Coming in for a good landing!
[cheering]
The "two-eyed seeing" concept
is that there's the eye of science
and the eye of Indigenous knowledge,
that they need to work together
in order to get a more clear picture of the ecosystem,
and it's not about one being better than the other,
but us working together,
and I really love that concept, and it's... it's catching.
You know, in our culture,
we call it picking up our bundles, right?
Our responsibilities.
We're picking it up and we're saying,
"All right, this is what we have to do."
[Dianne] Cecilia's words have stayed with me.
What's my bundle?
What's my responsibility?
...and I really love the two-eyed ways of seeing.
When I was filming in the Arctic and on Everest,
it took Indigenous wisdom and modern technology
to navigate people through danger to safety.
Batteries freeze in the cold,
so all that high-tech equipment didn't matter anymore.
We needed the traditional wisdom of the Inuit Elders.
Nothing's more powerful than an idea whose time has come.
It's hard not to believe that it's time for this one.
[father] Hi, Dianne, we're just phoning to say happy birthday.
[mother] ♪ Happy birthday to you
♪ Happy birthday to you ♪
♪ Happy birthday, dear Dianne
♪ Happy birthday to you
Love you. Bye bye.
[***]
[Dianne] Across the St. Lawrence River,
a steep climb to begin 250 kilometres of backpacking
in the Charlevoix region of Québec.
This area, centuries ago, was home to Indigenous people
who gathered, hunted, and fished,
and lived in harmony with the local environment...
and then in the 19th century,
we saw a lot more trading, agriculture,
development, logging...
but then a few decades ago,
a group of people
decided to bring it back to the way it was.
In just a few decades,
changed the economy of the region they love.
They got UNESCO protection,
and they took polluted rivers
and they turned them into clean drinking water.
...and unfortunately, this morning,
my sweet little fortress got a hole in it.
I was boiling water.
Look... a big frigging hole.
Really unhappy.
That's the trail right there.
It's just a single track through thick forest.
It's really wet 'cause there's been a lot of rain.
[groaning]
Suffering just to show you
just how crazy the flies are here right now.
It's absolutely nuts,
and yeah, this is... [blowing]
one of those days where I'm going...
[blowing]
♪ Home is where I'd like to be ♪
You're very beautiful.
I love the art you did on the birch.
I know some people aren't so keen on it.
I think you're sacred.
[buzzing]
Aah! Fuck!
I'm just being swarmed by mosquitoes
now that I fell in the swamp.
Oh, my God.
I am absolutely reaching my first breaking point
on the Trans Canada Trail.
Fuck!
I'm trying to find the grace.
Ahh!
They're just biting right through the shirt.
Ahh! Oh, god!
Aah!
[buzzing]
[***]
[Dianne] When I left,
I thought I was going to be way more afraid
in the wild spaces.
Like, I always thought I'd feel safer near the towns,
but now, after being in the woods,
I feel way more fragile out here next to these cars.
I just found this little guy on the road.
Obviously been hit by a car,
and I felt his little heartbeat in my hand
and realized he's not dead...
so we hung out together for a little while,
made a little nest for him.
You want to go?
You can go.
It's amazing, these little moments of trust
between two species,
even if it's just for a little moment of time.
Bye bye, buddy!
Shine on, man.
[***]
♪ They paved paradise Put up a parking lot ♪
♪ With a pink hotel A boutique ♪
♪ And a swinging hot spot
♪ Don't it always seem to go
♪ That you don't know what you got 'til it's gone ♪
♪ They paved paradise Put up a parking lot ♪
♪ Shoo, bop, bop, bop, bop
♪ Ooh, bop, bop bop, bop ♪
♪ They took all the trees Put 'em in a tree museum ♪
♪ And they charged the people a dollar and a half ♪
♪ Just to see 'em
♪ Don't it always seem to go
♪ That you don't know what you've got 'til it's gone ♪
♪ They paved paradise Put up a parking lot ♪
♪ Shoo, bop, bop, bop, bop
♪ They paved paradise Put up a parking lot ♪
[laughter]
[Dianne] I think I'm actually developing a crush
on the beautiful rocks and boulders
that are a part of this landscape...
[camera shutter snapping]
...and yesterday during the hike,
the old stone
and I don't know what that pink stone is
that's woven through it,
but it's so very sexy and beautiful.
So far on this journey,
I have been on trails that are old fur trader trails,
I've been on water trails,
I've been on trails that are old rail line trails,
and yes, there's another category
called the make-believe trail...
Aah, what the fuck?!
No, not this way.
Shit. I hate this.
It's like someone somewhere drew a line on a map,
but they definitely never actually did it themselves.
Argh!
Okay... calm down and focus.
Where did you find these?
[laughing]
Along the road up here.
[Dianne] You stopped... you picked them up,
and you brought them to me?
Yeah. I didn't know if they was yours or not.
[Dianne] Yeah. You're a very, very kind guy.
[Dianne] Following your heart
definitely takes you different places
than following your mind.
[sighing]
Following my mind, I'd probably be a lawyer...
on some anti-depressants.
[chuckling]
Living in a city in a house that...
probably have a lot more net worth, for sure,
and economic security,
but I wouldn't have had the last 30 years.
I wouldn't have made films and written books.
I wouldn't be on the journey that I'm on now.
[barking]
What are you trying to say? Huh?
[Dianne] It's what I know for sure
about following your heart,
people look at you like you're some flake
when you say, "I'm trying to follow my heart."
...but it is a path, and many do walk it.
There's one more snowshoe.
Great.
Let's give 'er a go.
[Dianne] It's the beginning of 2017 and a new year,
and I'm welcoming in help.
That's my New Year's resolution.
I'm welcoming in help.
It'll be nice to have some company for a few nights.
[barking]
Aah!
Whoa!
Stop. Stop!
Okay, thanks, man.
[sighing]
[Dianne] The Voyageur trail is 270 kilometres long,
and I'm hearing that no one uses it,
so this is going to be interesting.
I need some help here, please!
Uh, okay!
[Dianne] Bye!
These are my first guests hiking with me,
and they're abandoning me.
They can't take it.
Be safe, okay? - Yeah.
It appears that I have crossed the great divide...
finding yourself abandoned by your friends
who think you're crazy because it's way too hard,
and you think, "This is awesome! I love this."
I think that today's Day 500,
and it's pretty funny,
because I think I still have 14,000 kilometres left to go.
I've been thinking about,
like, who do I know that would actually be able
to handle this out here?
...and, well, there's only one person.
[laughing]
Oh, boy!
Gloves? Check!
Knife? Check! Ha ha!
Fuzzy hat? Check! - Check!
Bring it on!
My name's Jenica.
I'm a close friend of Dianne's...
[singing]
My relationship with Dee is probably 20 years old.
We met when she was still a still photographer.
There it is.
[grunting] Okay...
[Jenica] This sled...
I stood, got all strapped in,
then I just lean forward,
and I couldn't move the sled at all.
What did I get myself into?
[laughing]
Just bushwhacking it, people!
Bushwhack...
[laughing]
[camera shutter snapping]
[Jenica] I'm too short.
I didn't realize she was as strong as she was.
[Dianne] Come on! Hurry up!
[laughing]
[Jenica] It's not an open trail
that you just pull a sled through.
There's, like, all these little trees...
I'm gonna kamikaze this sled down this hill,
because it's too steep.
Well... oh, well.
[Jenica] So I pushed the sled a lot with my stick thing,
and helped where I could,
and she's cursing me
for bringing my 50-pound sleeping bag,
but I was warm.
Wow, what a day!
Well, we thought that we could do 20 KM in three days,
but we just went 3.5 kilometres today.
I'd be happy if we go 5 KM tomorrow.
And I'll be happy if I get out of here.
[laughing]
Holy crap.
[Dianne] So we're going to cross right here,
where the water's not running as fast,
and it doesn't look too deep...
[Jenica] I don't want to get wet.
[Dianne] That's how we do it.
People following our GPS are probably wondering,
"What's taking Dee and Jenica so long?"
Whaa!
My feet are soaking wet!
Okay, so here...
It's -18 right now.
We've got snow in the tent.
Everything's frozen.
So... here's the kitchen,
and that's how you do that shit.
With the current pace,
we have another two full days to go,
but we run out of food as of the end of today.
Ahh... Mm...
[laughter]
This is the best thing we've eaten.
Yeah, well, seeing as how it's the last thing we're eating,
you better get in.
...and we're here.
We're saying instead of doing all this,
one, two, three KM there,
why don't we just walk along the lake to this point
and go there?
Boom.
So what we're hoping is to go maybe along this shore
and then cross over
to that side of the lake and follow it.
[wind howling]
Holy!
Holy Momma... deep!
[Jenica] It's nice to just not be on the clock
and on society's measurement of time and success.
Road!
Yay, road!
[laughing]
[Jenica] It's nice to just kind of be in the moment,
really being present.
It really taught me to persevere.
One step at a time.
This step, that step.
[Jenica] It's been a good trip, buddy.
[Dianne] Yeah, it was.
[Jenica] I never once felt fear.
[Dianne] Right on.
[Jenica] No service, no nobody around, no nothing.
[***]
♪ All the shining lights
♪ Yet we see no stars
♪ Wondering restless souls
♪ Trying to find their way
[Dianne] She's breathing.
♪ Through the city's disarray
I've been waiting a month for the ice to melt on the lake.
The local Indigenous people, the Anishinaabeg,
call the lake Gichigami.
It means the Great Sea.
As the world's largest freshwater lake,
she's the most valuable lake in the world.
This is Kwimu.
She's a gift, and the newest member of the family.
I'm bringing a blue barrel,
which is gonna carry four months' worth of food,
and I just picked up a used satellite phone
because I'm going to be very remote on this section,
and I got a dry suit,
which will give me more survival time
if I fall in the freezing water.
After watching her for a month,
I'm a little intimidated.
This lake will allow no mistakes.
Underneath the waters that I'm paddling
are 550 shipwrecks,
and they're made out of metal...
and I'm in a little 15-foot canoe.
I've also been told that she keeps her dead.
The water is so cold that bodies don't float.
This is my greatest fear of the journey...
1,000 kilometres solo on her waters.
Something's about to change.
I can tell just from the surface of the water.
The dragon is waking up.
Fog is rolling in really fast over there.
There's some serious... something... going on.
Whoa, gotta start paddling.
Oh!
The weather's turning very quickly here.
A lot quicker than it was predicted to.
Nothing's supposed to be happening till 7:00.
[groaning]
Never a dull moment.
Get the heck out of here, man.
Yikes.
Holy...
Get me out!
I got caught in some crazy stuff here.
Holy!
That was a miscalculation.
I'm feeling like I kind of lost my nerve a little bit.
It's not gonna take much for this canoe to flip.
I thought I was listening, but I'm not listening enough.
I've been watching the water.
I need flat water to go around that corner.
Or I need a south wind.
Anyway, here again.
Check in later.
It's very quiet.
The water's not making any sound...
...which means it could be a good time to paddle.
I'm gonna wait 'til morning and hope she still sleeps.
People are always asking me,
you know, like, don't you get lonely out there?
And after two years, I've learned
that there is a difference between solitude and loneliness.
You know, I read that humans
are just 0.001% of all life on Earth...
so I've been kind of connecting
to the other 99.99% of life on this journey.
They say you're supposed to let nature take its course,
but I'm gonna try to save this butterfly.
Just hang on. Don't freak out.
♪ For the journey need a heart of gold ♪
There ya go, buddy.
♪ For the journey need nerves of steel ♪
You can kind of be the ship's captain.
♪ I'll carry you with me Let the future unfold ♪
Two little fragile spirits.
♪ Dream written on a map of my soul ♪
Just don't be scared. It's okay.
We're in this together.
♪ Oh, Great Spirit As above, so below ♪
She's going! Yay, butterfly!
♪ In the long stretch of blue
No Internet, not one person,
and no sounds of cars or automobiles for a week.
I seem to be getting into the remote section now.
It sits well with me.
Gargantua.
The ancient rocks.
Sacred place to the Ojibwe.
Earth is sacred. Earth is sacred.
[camera shutter snapping]
...for today, mainly cloudy with 60% chance of showers.
Risk of a thunderstorm early this morning.
Fog patches...
I love how totally meaningless money is out here.
This thing can do me nothing.
This is not important.
This! This is very important.
This, this is really, really, really important.
Yeah, so maps and fire, and of course, home.
When I'm afraid on the water,
I focus on the words, "The water is sacred.
The water is sacred."
It refocuses my thinking away from fear of the water
to thinking about connection with the water...
and it's working.
I didn't know when I got Feather
that she was gonna shape my journey.
Today, I got invited to an Anishinaabe ceremony.
Apparently, word about that little red canoe
is getting around.
When I think of water,
the word that comes into my mind is magic.
It's amazing what you can do with it.
It's amazing what it can do.
It can be so gentle.
We can put a little baby in there,
and we can wash that baby, and it feels good...
and that water can even take life.
That's how powerful it is.
[singing and rattling]
[laughter]
[hooting]
You know, it can feel like there's a big gap
between Indigenous worldview and the Western worldview,
but what I'm beginning to realize
is it's actually just a simple word.
I was taught, when I paddle, to not paddle on the water,
but to paddle with the water.
To not walk on the Earth, to walk with the Earth.
These spots are few and far between, you know?
Just a little bit of work involved in getting to them.
My GPS device here is not working properly.
Now it just shut itself off, so this is not good.
No GPS means no one knows where I am.
I'm about to launch off the canoe here.
It's gonna be interesting.
It was a little bit of a pitch we're on right now.
We'll undo the rope and drop Kwimu,
and you, into the water,
and then I'm going to slide down this rock and get in.
Uh-oh...
Ouch! Sorry, buddy.
Whoa, easy!
For some reason, the water levels are really high
and the beaches I would normally be able to camp on
are all submerged.
I'm having a really hard time finding camping.
There's no shore...
so I'm gonna dig out my headlamp soon,
and I'm gonna paddle at night.
It's my first...
My first lake headlamp paddle.
Fuck...
I really don't have a very good feeling about this.
[paddling]
[singing Anishinaabe grandmother song]
It was a crazy night last night.
Paddled until 2:30 in the morning.
It was probably the most dangerous moment
I've had so far on this journey on Lake Superior.
[chuckling]
Just have a moment of gratitude
for finding this little spot in the dark
when everything else just looked rather frightening.
That was quite the journey.
See that rock over there?
That's called the sleeping giant,
and on the other side of it
is the end of the Lake Superior paddle.
Okay, this next section looks crazy.
I gotta go 1,200 kilometres
through the middle of the continent
on a system of rivers and lakes,
connected by, and this is the crazy part,
168 portages!
But it's a beautiful story and an ancient trail,
originally an Anishinaabe route,
then adopted by the Voyageurs,
and now a water trail called Path of the Paddle.
Portaging a canoe means
to carry your canoe over a stretch of land.
This is usually done by one person
because the others in your party will be carrying gear.
See, the problem here is there are no others,
so I have three bags, including the barrel,
and I can only carry one at a time,
so I have four loads doing this solo.
That means each portage seven times,
and they range from 100 metres to four kilometres in length.
Saturday night, rain showers likely,
and numerous thunderstorms.
Lows near 50...
This is really intense, man. I need help.
I don't know... I gotta try to talk Jenica into coming back.
All aboard!
[Dianne] We just got nailed by a heavy snowstorm yesterday
when Jenica was on her way in,
and locals say it should melt.
It's a little early for winter.
It's hard finding the portage... but we did it.
It's hard to see the trail
because of all the branches down.
Take that.
What are you doing out here? Are you hiking, or what?
Well, no, I'm portaging.
Portaging!
This is reminding me a lot of the Voyageur trail.
[Dianne] I'm so sorry.
I had visions of golden trees... - I know.
...paddling in the sunshine. - I know.
Look, they can't even make an axe that a girl can use.
[bear bell jingling]
Canoes, forest, snow...
Not things that usually go together.
Snow's our friend sometimes!
That's right.
[Dianne] It took four hours to prep the trail,
but we just hauled Kwimu in record-breaking time.
Canoes slide in the snow,
so it's worth taking the time.
Oh!
- Morning. - Good morning.
We have a bit of a problem.
[chuckles]
The, uh, the water has frozen overnight...
and we have to somehow figure out what to do.
Not a good situation, hey, J?
- Nay, nay. - Alhamdulillah.
- Quarter inch. - Yeah.
That's the dangerous stuff, though.
You go in, popping back out...
[Jenica] I get it. I understand.
We're not at fucking Disneyland here.
[Dianne] No.
I'm not very educated about lakes, and ice,
and all those things.
I'm a West Coast girl. The ocean is what I know.
I want to keep you alive.
Yeah, that's why you're here.
Okay, so we have headlamp, flare gun,
emergency blanket, and matches.
I say we stick to the side and then chop our way through.
We can do this.
Just be slow and steady.
Okay, so we're gonna give this a go,
and we're gonna go chopping across there.
[sighs] Here we go, bud.
Oh, my gosh!
I think I want to rename the trail
the Paddle of the Hatchet.
The Paddle of the Hatchet!
All right...
It's tough to be a filmmaker
when you're cutting your way across the ice, people!
Axe repair.
Don't want to lose our axe.
Yeah.
It doesn't look far, but, you know,
look at that trail punched through the ice...
Whoo-ee!
Whoo-ee...
No Mickey Mouse.
This is how thick the ice is...
and it's not thick enough to trust out there...
but look at that. What is that, J?
I'd say it's... inch? - Inch.
Whoo!
Yeah, it's just...
You can see there's little spots out there,
so we can't walk it.
We can't pull the canoe.
There's water over there.
It's just tricky to know, man.
If anything had shifted, or a hole in the canoe,
or anything that might have happened...
A hole in the canoe is a very real possibility.
- That's like life or death, man. - Yeah, it is life or death.
So we don't need to risk our life to try and get
to where it's easier to portage our stuff out at the road.
- It's not about what's easier. - No.
It takes a long time to hack through it, so...
there's a road.
We're gonna go try to find it,
and that might just be our exit point.
There is no trail.
We're stuck.
It's now completely frozen behind us,
and it's completely frozen in front of us.
We've been hacking away
trying to find that trail now for three days.
[panting]
[Dianne] We are hours from, uh, anywhere really, right now.
I'm thinking I'll call my cousin, Derm.
He lives in Winnipeg, about eight hours away,
and maybe he can find a buddy and a chainsaw.
Good. Okay.
Well, we'll look forward to seeing you today.
That would be great.
I like chainsaws. I left mine at home.
They sound like they're gonna bomb the trail today,
so we'll go from our location out to the road.
I just defined the road a bit more for them,
because there's two roads... - Yeah, I know, I saw.
...and we don't want to start hacking away...
Yeah, we don't want to go down...
[Dianne] Nine kilometres that way,
my cousin Derm and his buddies
are bucking up some logs, making their way in.
We're probably about, I'd say two and a half, 3 KM in?
But you can see it's, uh, anything but a road,
and we do not hear him working from the other end.
Now we're at a time
where we need to actually go back again,
so, uh, there's pink tape on one of these trees,
kind of high up.
Oh, man. I can't believe
we didn't bump into those guys today.
I really hope we're cutting down the right trail here.
We're responsible adults...
Taking a deep breath and having gratitude
and, uh, being responsible for what you're doing.
I wonder what the other 50-year-old women
are doing today?
[laughing]
Let's do this.
We've each decided just to pack up a personal bag
of all the essentials.
...but we're gonna leave our tent up
so we have a fallback safety measure
in the event that we don't see them.
Hey, J, don't burn out too much energy
with that right now.
[distant sounds]
Yoo!
[chainsaw running]
[Dianne] Sounds like to... to the left.
Whoo! [laughing]
Oh, buddy!
Did I tell ya how much I love you today?
I love you!
Holy fuck!
Thanks for saving our lives.
[laughing]
How far's the truck?
4.1 kilometres...
Okay.
...of sheer fucking bush.
I hear ya, man. Hey!
I know you know it.
This is all I've had, this fucking hatchet!
Thank god we had a fucking chainsaw!
[Dianne] So, Canada, this is what an angel looks like.
They don't actually come with wings on.
They come with a helmet, and a smile,
and a bad weather day...
and they cut through 4 KM of bush!
I haven't had a adventure like this in a long time.
[Dianne] There goes Lady J.
She's got a chainsaw in her hand...
Oh, you're bad!
Hard to believe I'm coming back without you, Little J,
but here I am...
and I'm coming back through here now
to try to get stuff out.
A lot of time to think,
hauling this canoe out of the forest, and uh, you know,
I've spent most of my life romanticizing individualism.
Oh, yeah.
Oof!
[Dianne] ...and now I'm beginning to think
that it is an illness in our society.
I think we're just like the trees.
When you see a tree on the surface,
it looks like that each tree is standing alone,
but beneath the ground,
all the roots are interconnected.
I got some great advice from one of the Elders I met,
and she said, "Winter is a time
when you gotta be like the bear,
to go inside, to rest, to sew missing buttons...
to get your energy back,"
and uh, to apply for some grants
so I can keep this filmmaking thing going on out here.
After two months off,
I returned to the trail in Manitoba,
pushing my mountain bike through wet fields and mud.
I mean, the stuff is called gumbo,
and seriously, you could build a house with this stuff.
I don't know why we don't.
Anyway, gumbo... yeah, it's quite something.
Then I headed back where I'd been frozen in.
This time I went back in with my new buddy, Wanda,
because I still had 700 kilometres of paddling
to get through,
and I don't even remember how many portages.
Wanda and I spent a week out there together,
and we had an incredibly close call one night,
in the middle of nowhere...
[thunder and lightning]
[tree falling]
...and as soon as it was light, we both ran out
because we thought for sure the canoe had been destroyed.
Thank you, Mother. Thank you.
I look down to you.
Thank you.
The journey goes on.
[Wanda] It might have gone on
a lot longer than you'd anticipated
had something happened to Kwimu.
[laughing]
[Dianne] After she left,
I connected with my friend Greg,
an old friend of 30 years,
and, sweet man,
he helped me finish the Path of the Paddle.
Together we did about 600 kilometres.
We had beaver dams.
We had crazy portages...
I can't believe how far you've already gotten it.
Oh, fuck!
[Dianne] ...and we had some really sweet moments...
...and for days, we followed the wild rice
that was planted centuries ago by Anishinaabe ancestors.
Uh, they would plant the rice on their way out to the hunt,
and then when they came back, they would harvest the rice,
and the descendants are still harvesting this wild rice.
Pretty incredible.
We finished in Manitoba,
and now I'm launching back into Saskatchewan.
I can't believe I'm just past the halfway mark,
but as they say,
it's the journey, not the destination.
I've been taking photographs for over 30 years,
and making documentaries for 15 years now,
but since I've been in Saskatchewan,
I've been feeling like
I've been falling in love with my camera all over again.
After a couple of years out here now,
I've learned how to listen differently,
but I've also learned how to watch differently too.
The excitement of seeing a wild bird or a wild animal,
getting the camera quietly,
like, being with...
and then in those magic moments, the connection,
the moments of trust,
when I'm being both the observer and the observed.
Hi.
How's it going?
Hi.
Ouch. [giggling]
There you go.
Hi.
Hi, my friend.
Hi.
Hi, ancient one.
Bite my hand.
Sacred.
You're sacred.
Yes, you are.
[Dianne] My friend Janine has been helping me film
for the last few days in Saskatchewan.
It's been really great.
I got to meet her kids and her dad.
It's so wonderful to be with somebody
who has a different perception of the world,
and I always learn something from her.
I learned today that in Cree communities,
they don't measure poverty by your finances.
They measure it by how alone you are.
[Janine] I think that in order for the Indigenous worldview
to be understood,
people have to really get to know people.
They have to talk to people.
They have to walk the land,
but most of all,
they have to develop a kinship
with the people they're working with.
One of the very basic teachings that my mom raised me
was to nurture our role as stewards.
I was always told we don't own the land,
and neither can anybody own the land,
because the land is a living being,
and we're here to take care of the land...
but over the years,
that idea of ownership has become so apparent
that we start to focus more on who owns the land,
and not how we can come together to take care of it.
Hi!
[singing]
You'll make me cry.
Oh, wow, you guys!
- Hi! - Thank you.
Hi!
Yeah, yeah.
We have this t-shirt we wanna gift you.
It's the first Standing Buffalo chief.
[Dianne] Wow, well, I'm very, very honoured,
and you cracked my heart open a little bit.
This journey is about reconnecting
and saying thank you to the ancestors of this land,
so.. thank you.
Hi!
[all] Hi!
Here we are with the class from Standing Buffalo.
Thank you for your kind heart.
[laughing]
Bye!
It's very moving.
[***]
[camera shutter snapping]
[train horn honking]
[Dianne] This next section
is a 4,000-kilometre paddle to the Arctic Ocean,
and it's the longest and most remote part of the trail,
and I need to do this before winter freezes up.
I already know there's, like, no way I can do this on my own.
My name is Louisa Robinson,
and I met Dee about 12 years ago now,
and I had this voice inside me that just said,
"Pay attention."
This little soft spot in my heart opened up that day.
[***]
[Dianne] Louisa has come out a few times to resupply me,
and the last time she came out, she brought more than just food.
[chuckling]
♪ I didn't know I'd find a girl like you ♪
♪ That you'd wanna come for a ride... ♪
[Dianne] ...and now we're gonna paddle to the Arctic together.
♪ Must have done something good ♪
♪ To have an angel sitting by my side ♪
Hi.
[Dianne] So it's just gonna be the two of us.
Four months.
One tent. One canoe.
Nowhere to go.
I guess you could say
we're diving into relationship boot camp.
Better lock down, baby.
There's no place like home.
[Dianne] So we got lots of smoke coming down right now.
Before we left,
this guy named Johnny, a First Nations man,
said the fire's out of control in Fox Lake,
and, you know, the smoke will get you
before the flames will, so...
His words are sitting with me
as I look at that thick smoke up there.
We wanted to ask you to check the Fox Lake fire.
My concern is that we're moving into the smoke.
I can feel the smoke right now, like in my throat,
and in my eyes. - Yeah.
Getting some word that the fire is under control,
so we're making a push.
You're set. Bells on.
- Five metres down... - Yeah.
- ...eight kilometres to go. - Eight kilometres to go.
[Dianne] This is the mother of all portages.
Oh, man...
[Dianne] It's an eight-kilometre portage
that we have to kinda bushwhack and find...
Kwimu gets wheels!
[Dianne] ...and then we're going to have to do this portage
about seven times, I'm guessing.
[grunting]
Okay, yup... okay, hang on.
[straining]
How I spent my summer vacation.
[Dianne] There's probably easier love out there.
I don't think so.
[Dianne] Totally bagged.
Yesterday's 20 KM just wiped us both,
but it's all good.
I chose this.
The earth holds the stories.
Each layer is like another page in a book
about the days when this was all ocean.
These clouds...
this could be a change in the weather.
Love that texture.
It's a work of art.
This looks like a huge feather going through there.
Thank you.
Thank you very much.
[water bomber overhead]
Looks like a fire burning out of control again over there.
That's where we came from.
Wow.
Just came out of nowhere.
That happened fast.
[Louisa] That sure did.
You can see where all the fires are.
[Dianne] All right.
[Louisa] From the moment we started paddling...
[Dianne] Yeah?
[Louisa] ...until, like, a day ago,
we were in an evacuation area.
[Dianne] That's evacuation area now?
[Louisa] It's the red area on this Alberta wildfire map.
[Dianne] Wow.
[geese honking]
[Dianne] Oh, wow, that's just utter crazy.
[buzzing]
[Dianne] Ahh, bulldogs.
Look at all these bulldogs!
Aah!
Bleep.
Bleep! Aah!
Mother bleep...
[groaning]
Fucker's in my eye, sorry!
Oh, yeah, one's up the leg.
Aha, see that? Ohh...
Ha ha, one down!
- Nice one... - [chuckling]
Bye bye.
Another one!
I'm getting quite good at just, like,
catching them with my fingers.
I'm up to 13 kills,
and it's not even an hour on the boat...
Buh-bye!
She's using our new flipper for the pancakes,
which we haven't even used yet...
Argh.
Are we, going, like, going backwards?
Uh, maybe.
[giggling]
All's fair in love and war.
Buh-bye.
Thanks, hon.
[Dianne] It's great to have Louisa out here.
At the same time, it's a lot of responsibility, you know,
when you're bringing somebody you care for out here,
and right when I was leaving to begin this journey,
she had a health incident,
and it took her a couple of years
just to heal from it...
[Louisa] I really like seeing wolf prints.
[Dianne] Hmm...
[Dianne] ...so I am a little bit worried.
You know, there's no 9-1-1.
There's no calling for help out here
if something goes wrong.
It's just the two of us.
But we're okay.
Yeah, we're all right.
We're totally okay.
Yeah, we got this.
- Yeah. - Yes.
[Dianne] The Peace River
is about to merge now with the Slave River.
Every river, I'm learning, has its own spirit,
and this one is furious.
[drumming]
There are 10 kilometres of unsurpassable rapids,
but lucky for us and all paddlers,
the people in this community are set up
to help everybody carry their stuff
around these rapids...
...and it's super cool,
because this is the most northern colony of pelicans,
and they live on a little island on Slave River,
and oddly, the tumultuous waters that prevent us from paddling
are the very waters that protect them from predators.
We've just arrived at Great Slave Lake,
which is the deepest lake in North America,
and it has a reputation of not always being nice.
The water is high at the moment.
Really hard to find camping
when we can't paddle close to the shore.
[Louisa] That's a very strange sight.
[Dianne] We're just looking for these little spots
that won't get wet if the wind picks up
and waves start coming in.
They are few and far between,
and we can't see them paddling out a half a kilometre away.
The body of a kayaker pulled from Great Slave Lake
by search and rescue teams on Wednesday evening
has been identified
as 30-year-old Thomas Destailleur
of Toronto.
The chief coroner has said the cause of death was drowning.
[Dianne] He just died five kilometres behind us
on these same waters...
a young man trying to make a documentary...
follow his dreams...
just like me.
It's really hit us hard.
It's made the dangers feel so much closer.
It's easy to romanticize our dreams,
but some of them...
some of them become nightmares.
The veil between the two worlds is really thin right now...
between life and death.
Fear will protect us and panic will kill us,
so it's as much a mental game as it is a physical one.
Help me stay grounded.
Whoo-ee!
That's what gets people killed, right there.
Good thing we came to shore, man!
Yeah...
It's so cool.
It's the wolf superhighway.
Wolfy... wolfy.
Momma bear... with baby bear.
We've got some really great dehydrated peas in here.
Oh, I love those!
Yeah, me too.
Yeah, we'll be fighting over those.
I'm just gonna give you them!
[chuckling]
Yeah, you can just have them.
It's going to taste frigging fantastic.
Yeah. Everything tastes frigging fantastic out here.
That's right.
[producer] Hi, Dee!
I hope you and Louisa are doing okay.
Um, I'm getting in touch to alert you
that there's been some news today
about a death of a canoeist on the Mackenzie
very close to where you are.
Apparently he was taken from his tent by a bear,
so please, please be super careful,
and make sure that we can continue to track you
on the GPS.
[Dianne] The energy of the journey just totally changed.
It's really hit Louisa really hard,
and there's just nothing we can do about it.
I mean, the river only flows one way,
so there's no going back.
We've just got to keep on going 'til we get to the Arctic.
[Louisa] If I think of, like, what would my worst nightmare be
of something that would happen on the trail,
was someone that I loved
being hauled out of the tent and eaten,
and not being able to do anything about it.
It just made everything so real and so raw.
It terrified me to think
that we were going to be camping on the same shores.
[Louisa] I've never done this before,
so I don't actually know how to load this one,
so I'm trying to figure that out.
Okay.
Oh, you got the condom on the end of the gun.
Whoa... be careful.
Do you remember?
That ain't going.
Ohh, how about like this?
That's how you do it, baby.
[Dianne] We're still both really on edge,
and we're getting through it.
We're confronting the fear and we're moving through it,
but you don't want to be naive.
[Louisa] How's it... how's it going?
[man] You voyageurs are okay?
[Louisa] Voyageurs, yes!
[both women laugh]
[man speaking indistinctly]
- Oh, that'd be awesome, yeah. - What?
You want a piece of caribou meat?
[Louisa] Oh, wow. That is...
[laughing]
...tip the canoe. - Where?
- Tuk. - Holy shit!
[Louisa] We left from Peace River.
[man] Well, have some, uh, stir-fry there.
- That's amazing. - That's a lot of caribou.
- That's a lot. - Caribou from the mountains.
When you get to the rapids on...
On the Ramparts, or whatever?
On the Ramparts, and then you stay...
- To the right. Okay. - Yeah, so on this side,
but if you go on the other side, there's gonna be a big drop,
so don't go there.
[Dianne] No, no, no, we won't do that. Thank you.
Thank you very much for your kindness.
- Bye, guys! - Bye bye. -Bye bye!
[man] Nice to meet you guys!
[Dianne] You too!
[Louisa] We knew that we would have to deal with rapids.
They were very kind to stop
and tell us what we were up against.
These guys said if you go in the middle of the river
or river left, you won't make it.
Okay, baby, here we go!
We're gonna go through some standing waves right now.
Shit, baby...
...and we do not want to get any closer to those rocks.
No...
[Louisa] My way of dealing with it is to talk nonstop.
Okay, baby, good job.
[Louisa] Dee's in the back,
and she is, like, just calm, and she's alert.
She's watching.
I'm in the front, and I'm like, "blah, blah, blah."
These are very large standing waves.
Okay, baby, good job!
[Louisa] There's water splashing up over top of the canoe...
Good job!
[Louisa] ...there's water in the bottom of the boat.
The water is very close to coming over the sides.
Not any farther out than this.
Good.
We just gotta stay out of any backwards spin.
[Dianne] Yeah.
[Louisa] I am drenched in sweat right now.
- Oh, yeah... - Whoo!
Okay, adrenals.
I'm glad we had a heads-up from those guys this morning.
- [Dianne] You okay? - [Louisa] Yeah.
[Louisa] I am jacked beyond belief, but I'm okay.
[laughing]
[Dianne] Nature's painted everything yellow.
I'm told fall lasts three days around here,
which means winter's coming,
and to make it before freeze-up,
because this river's gonna turn to ice,
we've got to do about 50 KM a day right now,
so we really got our work cut out for us.
Go on! Get running!
Oh, fuck... I got the bear spray.
Go on, black bear!
Getting my clothes on.
It is sitting watching us right now.
Right on that ledge!
Oh, fuck.
I'm coming out!
Go... on! Get! Get! Get! Get!
I'm firing a shot, baby.
Okay.
Go on!
[cocking rifle]
[firing gun]
- It is not running. - I know. I see that.
- Go on, black bear! - Go on!
Okay, first thing I'm gonna do is get the canoe in the water.
Get, black bear, go on!
Go on! Go!
So let's get essentials packed first.
Yeah...
[Dianne] I've got a bear spray in my pocket.
[Louisa] Where's the other one?
[Dianne] I don't know.
[Louisa] The safety is on so that we don't...
[Dianne] Yeah. Kill ourselves.
- Okay. - Yeah.
Start loading up shit, fast.
Keep on walking, bear!
...just stand there... look out.
I'm watching.
I'm just gonna keep on yelling and making a lot of noise!
I found the other bear spray.
Okay... I don't care right now.
Stand by with the gun?
Yeah, okay.
Safety's off, right?
[firing gun]
We're packing up, bear!
Getting ready to leave your island
so you can have it back!
I'm awake. Are you awake?
I'm awake!
All right... tarp.
[grunting]
Okay...
Fuck...
- Thank you. - Thank you!
Have a good day!
Oh, that was the fastest pack-up we've ever done.
Oh, my god, it's Friday the 13th.
- Friday the 13th... - Oh. My. God.
[laughing]
- We did it. - Yeah, man.
Holy crap!
[chuckling]
[geese honking]
Way down the beach is the blue barrel.
That's where all the food is.
We also choose these sandbars which, once you get afraid,
that fear comes with you everywhere.
We've booby-trapped all the way around the tent.
Here's the grand master of the booby trap.
It's like a piece of Kleenex, but it makes me feel better.
[laughing]
[camera shutter snapping]
[Dianne] Frost.
All these rivers, and even the Arctic Ocean,
will be sheets of ice very soon.
If that happens,
we would be stuck out here for a long time.
We're very remote,
and there aren't any cousins I can call on for help.
We've both lost a lot of weight and we're both really tired,
so there's a lot of tension
between patience and the need to get going.
The Dene hunters we got the moose meat from,
they told us, like, "Build big fires.
That's what will keep the bears away."
Louisa's really having a hard time still,
and I offered to, like, stay up so she could sleep,
and then when she wakes up, I'll go to sleep,
and, uh, we'll navigate our way through this.
[camera shutter snapping]
What are you doing, honey?
Uh, dropping my pee cloth in the fire.
Trying to warm it up, melt the ice off it.
Melt the ice off your pee cloth?
Yeah, I gotta pee really bad,
but wiping a frozen piece of ice on my hoochie
doesn't feel like the best idea.
- No? - No.
Our biggest challenge coming up is our fatigue.
My survival suit has a rip in the neck,
so our survival time in the water
is very minimal before hypothermia would set in.
We just hit the Arctic Ocean, and that wind...
yeah, that's adding a little bit more chill
to the day.
We've got two days to Tuk.
[Louisa] The waves coming over the side...
My butt's wet.
There's a big cross on the shore
which I would turn the camera to,
but I gotta paddle.
Well done, baby!
There's a yellow kind of house.
There's a person standing there.
I can hear somebody yelling.
[laughter]
[Louisa] As we were getting closer,
I saw this white pickup truck drive down onto the beach,
and out of this pickup truck I see long legs and long hair,
and I was, like, "My god,
that looks like Janne, my daughter!"
Dee's like, "Oh, baby, you're hallucinating.
You know, Janne's in California,"
and then from across the water comes this little voice...
[Janne] Hi, Mommy!
[Louisa squealing]
...and I just about lost it!
[laughing]
I love you, cricket!
[Louisa] I couldn't believe it. Like, I could...
It still, like, breaks my heart.
For her to show up like that,
like, she really showed up.
My favourite women in the world!
Unbelievable!
[all laughing]
How did you get here?
[sobbing]
- Congratulations! - Thank you!
You made it to the top of the world.
[Dianne] Through the kindness of a lot of people.
[Louisa] Yes.
You did it!
[Dianne] Now I'm carrying on alone again.
I've gotta head back to the land trail
where we began our paddle,
and start the long march south.
Nearly four billion people in over 90 countries
are now living in some form of lockdown,
asked by governments to stay at home
in a global effort
to contain the spread of the COVID-19 virus.
[Dianne] It's so odd,
because I came out here to be all alone.
I really did.
I just didn't want to be with anybody,
and of course, well, that didn't happen.
Uh, needed help from the day one.
Anyway, now everyone is being told to stay home,
and I guess I'm safe from COVID out here,
but the problem is, how am I gonna get through this alone?
I mean, like, how am I gonna resupply
if I can't go into the communities?
And who's going to be able to help me
if everybody's under lockdown?
Oh, god.
It's okay!
It's okay. All good.
It's just really kind of strange.
A virus that affects people's lungs shuts down industry,
and the air that we breathe is cleaning up.
Louisa has moved into an off-grid camper,
and she's going to meet me when the trail meets a road.
[***]
[squeaking]
The other side of those mountains?
That's home.
I'm about 1,500 kilometres until I'm done the journey now.
[camera shutter snapping]
My mind, of course,
is reflecting a lot about how maybe I might have changed.
I remember part of the motivation,
which I still feel,
is stepping out,
was just also to find the quiet,
and to find the stillness... to understand.
It's always been a journey searching for understanding,
but when you're caught up in the constant barrage,
it's so hard to get a sense of a larger picture.
All right.
This is a rather unfortunate thing sometimes on the trail.
I clearly can't go back.
I'm three days in on this trail,
and it's saying if I want to go through here,
I need to contact these people.
That's rather difficult. There's no cell service.
Oh, great.
Animal prints going in the tunnel.
Let's hope they come out. [chuckling]
This is the incredible woman that I'm in love with.
Okay, all packed up inside the sled.
Louisa's gonna do some filming.
She's in the very dirty
"500 Days in the Wild" support vehicle.
Bye! Thank you so much!
I'll call you on the sat phone.
[singing quietly]
[Dianne] It's March 3rd,
and in July, it will be six years.
Hopefully this next push is the push to the end.
Camped here last night.
Been spending the morning
with this sweet little otter over there.
Right after I smudged,
it just came to the surface of the water.
Resonance.
The more I sit with that idea, it's not the words...
it's our hearts. It's what we feel.
Am I feeling fear? Am I feeling joy?
Am I feeling love? Am I feeling disgust?
I'm feeling awe... and wonder
to be able to sit in silent conversation.
Whoo-ee!
Oh...
- Hi! - Hello!
Phew!
[***]
By car, probably 7.5 hours I could be in Victoria,
but for me it's gonna be a couple months,
because it's the journey of the turtle.
Almost home.
For me, the journey was always about hope,
because we have so much fear around us these days,
and I can tell you that most of the fear that I had
was something I carried out there with me
when I left, you know?
I had this fear of being a woman camping alone by myself,
but then night after night, I did it,
and nothing happened.
Six years travelling across this land,
whether I was in Indigenous communities
listening and learning,
or whether I was bumping into hunters
in the middle of the night,
lost in the woods...
I have met nothing but kindness from people on this land,
and I think it's important to remember that, you know?
It's easy when you watch the news.
We give shadow front page, you know?
But really, there's far more good
than there is shadow out there.
[sighing]
Hi, baby!
[Dianne] ...and it was great to be reminded of that.
[geese honking]
We're gonna paddle across here.
This is... this is the most open water we're gonna do,
and then we're gonna just follow the shoreline
right around into Stanley Park.
[Dianne] My final stretch of the journey
begins with a short but very meaningful
paddle with Marlayna.
We've known each other for over 30 years.
If it's true that our journeys are shaped
by what we carry in our heart,
then Marlayna has had a lot to do with the shape of mine.
[Marlayna] I know Dee from the age of ten.
I met her the weekend
that they had discovered my mom's skeletal remains,
'cause she had gone missing.
Dee was very much there
as an emotional support for my brother and I,
and I consider her to be chosen family.
When Dee asked me if I wanted to join her on the trail,
it was a couple of months after I had lost my grandmother,
so we landed on the decision to do it in honour of her.
Whoo!
[cheering]
[Marlayna] That was very sacred and powerful.
It felt like we were in this safe container.
It felt like everything leading up to that point
led us to right where we were supposed to be.
[Dianne] There's still just so much work to do.
Healing ourselves heals others around us.
I'm very honoured you decided to paddle with me today.
I'm under 200 kilometres away on my final paddle.
Now that I'm paddling up the Sunshine Coast...
I live on the coast,
so it's a pretty amazing sense of reconnection.
- Okay, the black one? - The big black one.
Try it.
Little J?
That's a big 10-4...
then take your damn thumb off of it.
- [laughing] - Let's try that again.
Okay.
[cheering]
[***]
♪ Follow
♪ Follow the sun
♪ Which way the wind blows
How's it going, brother?
♪ When this day is done
The last day. The last hour and a half.
♪ Breathe
♪ Breathe in the air
♪ Set your intentions...
[Dianne] That shoreline up there?
That's Clover Point,
and that is the end of the trail.
♪ Tomorrow's a new day for everyone ♪
[Dianne] For centuries, way before Canada was Canada,
those who arrived on the shore
were welcomed by the local Indigenous community,
and today I've been told
I'm gonna be following these ancient traditions.
What a meaningful way to end this journey.
[cheering]
I love you guys!
We love you!
♪ Follow the sun
♪ Which way the wind blows
[cheering]
Come on in!
[cheering]
Hello, Cecilia.
My name is Dianne,
and I've travelled across this land since 2015,
honouring the ancestors of this land,
and, um, I'm asking permission to come to shore,
onto your traditional Songhees territory,
and I come in peace.
Hych'ka Siem.
Hello, Dianne.
I welcome you to the shores of the Lekwungen people,
and we are pleased to have you
come join us on our traditional territories,
so please come ashore.
Thank you.
[cheering]
[applause]
I am very touched.
I have finished this journey
with an incredible amount of faith and hope for the future,
that we will all find a way to move forward together...
- All as one. - All as one!
The trail that connects us all.
[cheering]
[Dianne] While I was out there
over those past six years of my life,
Vern, the man who gifted me the feather,
had a granddaughter,
and her name is Lillian Hope.
I knew the day that she was born
that if Feather and I survived this journey,
that Feather would go home to her.
[singing and rattling]
How come the feather's in that special case thing?
[Dianne] It's a very special feather.
[Vern] It's been all over the world, my girl.
Whoa!
When your grandfather gave it to me,
you weren't even born yet,
and because your grandfather
gave it from his heart to a total stranger,
this feather has got the medicine of kindness,
and the medicine of forgiveness,
so this feather's for you.
Whoa.
[chuckling]
[Vern] We fight for the things that we need to,
and Mother Earth's worth fighting for.
I'll never give up hope.
Make sure you look after it.
- Yeah. - ...'kay?
'Kay.
- Háw'aa. - Háw'aa.
Give us a hug, both of us.
[chuckling]
[***]
♪ So I was feeling let down
♪ Shovelling pain by the pound
♪ Looking down at my shoes
♪ I felt like a human in doubt
♪ Really, my inside was out
♪ Very hard to amuse
♪ Then I heard something outside all about Mister Sun ♪
♪ Somebody singing outside making me a lucky one ♪
♪ Your song it lifted my heart ♪
♪ Your song, it lifted my heart ♪
♪ Lifted my heart
♪ You were there in the back yard ♪
♪ Playing and working so hard
♪ Making pies out of mud
♪ I was all wrapped in my head
♪ Wanted to be back in bed
♪ Sinking down in the flood
♪ Then I heard singing outside
♪ All about the golden sun
♪ Somebody singing outside
♪ Making me a lucky one
♪ Your song is lifting my heart ♪
♪ La, la, la, la, la la, la, la, la ♪
♪ La, la, la, la, la la, la, la, la, la ♪
♪ La, la, la, la, la, la la, la, la, la, la ♪
♪ You're a miracle changing my life ♪
♪ Sending me to my soul
♪ Sweet miracle changing my life ♪
♪ Thrilling me head to toe
♪ Your love is lifting my heart ♪
♪ Lifting my heart
♪ La, la, la, la, la, la
♪ La, la, la, la, la, la, la
♪ La, la, la, la la, la, la, la ♪
♪ La, la, la, la, la la, la, la, la ♪
♪ Your love is lifting my heart ♪