NFB Collection
Paddle to the Sea
196627 min 59 secFilm: Fiction, Children's film
Direction: Bill Mason
Production: Julian Biggs
Script: Stanley Jackson
For all children and those adults for whom the romance of journeying is still strong. This great NFB children's classic is adapted from a story by Holling C. Holling. During the long winter night, an Indigenous boy sets out to carve a man and a canoe. He calls the man "Paddle to the Sea." The boy sets the carving down on a frozen stream to await the coming of spring. The film charts the adventures that befall the canoe on its long odyssey from Lake Superior to the sea. This delightful story is photographed with great patience and an eye for the beauty of living things, offering vivid impressions of Canada's varied landscape and waterways.
Availability
Other versions
Subject categories
- Literature and Language > Adaptations of Literary WorksChildren's Stories
- Canada - Images of a Country > Landscapes
- Geography and Geology > OntarioRivers and StreamsWaters and Flooding
- Indigenous Studies > Arts
- English Language Arts > Children's Stories/Fables
Credits
- director
- Bill Mason
- photography
- Bill Mason
- producer
- Julian Biggs
- associate producer
- Stanley Jackson
- editing
- Bill Mason
- commentary
- Stanley Jackson
- musical score
- Louis Applebaum
- sound editing
- Don Wellington
- sound recording
- Ron Alexander
- Roger Lamoureux
- production assistant
- Blake James
Awards
- Silver Medal - Category: Education - Language ArtsAnnual Awards Competition / International Film & Television Festival
- Certificate of MeritInternational Film Festival
- Best Documentary Film - Silver PlaqueInternational Children's Film Festival
- First Prize - Category: Stories for ChildrenItinerant - American Film and Video Festival
- Best Film - Category: Creative Arts and Experimental FilmsYorkton Film Festival
- Golden Plaque - Category: Educational Films for ChildrenInternational Festival of Films for Children and Young Adults
- First Prize - Category: Information FilmsFestival du film à format réduit
- Nominated one of the ten best films of the last ten yearsEducational Film Library Aassociation of America - Sightlines Magazine
- Award for Exceptional MeritInternational Festival of Short Films