No matter which of “The Twelve” schools I attended, there were always moments when our lesson plan would have some free moments to it; the teacher would ask us to drop the window shades, someone would bring out the old industrial movie projector, while another student would try to set up the white movie screen. With the exception of enjoying at least some popcorn and coming attractions, we were going to watch a movie for the next 20-30 minutes.
Yay!
Now most of these films have sadly disappeared from our collective consciousness, and it was only by accident that I came across this title. In fact, I only remembered brief fragments of this film, and for some reason – despite watching it in at least three different grade schools – I never got to see the film to its completion.
That film? Paddle-to-the-Sea, a 1966 Oscar-nominated short film that was, in turn, based on a 1940’s children’s book. This is the story of a little First Nations boy who carves a toy figurine of an Indian in a canoe, then sets the carving on a snowy mountainside. As the snow melts, the carving slides down the mountain and splashes into Lake Superior. The rest of the film chronicles the boat’s journey to the Atlantic Ocean. Thankfully, someone put a copy of the film on YouTube – in three separate 10-minute segments – and we can still watch it today.
Paddle-to-the-Sea is also available for free streaming, or for a nominal download purchase, from the National Film Board of Canada at this link.
What a great film. And as I watched it, I thought to myself … how many other motion pictures did we see as kids, how many times did we sit through an educational film or a children’s movie, whether at our school’s assembly auditorium or at our classroom desks. And how and why we watched them – were they part of our school curriculum, were they moments when the teacher needed a break from us and decided to “turn on the movie projector to keep us quiet,” who knows?
There are days in my life when I really feel old. And then I can watch a film like Paddle-to-the-Sea and I don’t feel so old any more.
Chuck The Writer 
When I was going to Maplewood School during my middle-school years, we took three days of Russian class to watch Nicholas and Alexandra. Still one of my favorite movies. I especially remember when Rasputin first came on screen and the majority of the class started singing the Doctor Who theme (Tom Baker was the Classic Doctor and played Rasputin as well)
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Thanks for this beautiful film, based on the book of the same name, Chuck. I’d never seen it before and the images are beautiful. Also somehow the perspective from the point of view of the canoe passenger and the animals along the way connects the viewer more deeply to nature and to human habitats in the 1960’s.
It also had special meaning in the light of the news about how little we’ve accomplished during the second Rio summit on climate change this year, It moved me in combination with the beautiful speech given by a young Canadian girl of 12 during 1992. Severn Suzuki who now at 32, with two sons of her own is still working to save our Earth.
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I love this Chuck! Thanks for sharing. Brought back a lot of memories for me as well. Loved movie time at school. I hadn’t seen this one.
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