Watch: Les Stroud Takes La Loche School Students Canoeing After Tragedy

Les Stroud released a documentary about a canoe trip he took with students that were affected by a school shooting…

As a 2021 Christmas gift to you all I would like to present to you a film I am very proud of. Winning several awards, scored by Bruce Cockburn and narrated by Elisapie Isaac this is the 56 minute version with a directors cut to come at a later date.

This is a story, set against a backdrop of the pristine, beautiful and powerfully healing wilderness that begins with tragedy, and ends with spiritual and emotional transformation.

After a deadly school shooting in a remote Canadian aboriginal community took the lives of four people and injured seven others, a caring teacher sought to present a healing opportunity for the students. But it was an opportunity that could only exist in one place; nature.

She asked a TV celebrity that the students admired and well known for his outdoor adventure prowess, if he would consider coming on a canoe trip down a traditional indigenous river route with 8 boys directly affected by the shooting. And so it was that Les Stroud, creator and host of the international television series Survivorman, boarded a plane for the far northern community of La Loche, Saskatchewan. He had no agenda but to spend time with the students, in the greatest place of healing on earth; the wilderness.

This is a story of how nature heals. It is an illustration of how young men and women born of aboriginal descent and living far away from the pollution and crime of big cities are, in actuality, no different than any teenager in society anywhere. It is a testament to the power of being present both physically and spiritually in a natural environment.

With one camera, a paddle and a desire to help, Stroud allows the young men to tell their own story. They tell the stories of their lives, their town, the shooting and most importantly, of their hopes and dreams. We are allowed to witness as nature heals day by day on a canoe trip that begins the process within these aboriginal teenagers of moving from fear and confusion to optimism and confidence. Produced and directed, almost by accident, by award winning filmmaker Les Stroud, this film’s deceptive simplicity underlies a complex yet powerful lesson for us all.

Directed By Les Stroud Starring Les Stroud