Educational Media Reviews Online

This video, part of the Great Northern Wilderness series, explores the vast northern country of Canada including the Yukon and the Northwest Territories. Featuring stunning photography of the beauty and harshness of this part of the world, it is a fascinating look into the battle for survival by all living inhabitants.

The film opens in Wood Buffalo, Canada’s largest national park. Its attractions include the world’s largest inland delta, the Athabasca, Peace and Slave Rivers and North America’s largest population of wild bison; it is also a natural nesting place for countless waterfowl including loons, grebes, and whooping cranes.

Another area explored is Herschel Island, located in the Beaufort Sea and considered part of the Arctic Ocean. This glacier-created island is most noted for having continuous daylight from late May-late July. The wide variety of birds and water fowl includes peregrine falcons, northern pintails, sand hill cranes, arctic terns, hawks, lemmings, and the snowy owl. The film looks at animal life in the great wilderness which includes caribou, grizzly bears, musk oxen, spruce grouse, polar bears, snow shoe hare and Canadian lynx.

The hot mineral springs in Nahanni National Park are a sharp contrast to the extremely cold temperatures found elsewhere in the region. The dramatic Virginia Falls are one-third higher than Niagara Falls and every bit as majestic. The last area visited is Hudson’s Bay, the vast inland sea.

Wonderfully filmed, and a lesson in adapting to extreme challenges, this film is recommended for libraries with Canadian studies collections.

Other titles reviewed in The Great Northern series include Across the Great Divide and The Wild Shore