On the Trail of the Far Fur Country

On the Trail of the Far Fur Country
Directed byKevin Nikkel
Written byChris Nikkel
Kevin Nikkel
Produced byChris Nikkel
Kevin Nikkel
Edited byKevin Nikkel
Music byNathan Reimer
Production
company
Five Door Films
Distributed byWinnipeg Film Group
Release date
  • March 19, 2014 (2014-03-19)
Running time
80 minutes
CountryCanada
LanguageEnglish

On the Trail of the Far Fur Country is a Canadian documentary film, directed by Kevin Nikkel and released in 2014.[1] The film documents the 2012 screening tour of Nikkel and Peter Geller's restored version of the 1920 film The Romance of the Far Fur Country.

Although considered a lost film for many years, film historian Peter Geller found the original raw footage of The Romance of the Far Fur Country in the British Film Institute archives in 1996.[2] It was then transferred to the Hudson's Bay Company archives, where Geller and Nikkel worked to reconstruct the film, before undertaking a screening tour in 2012 under the title Return of the Far Fur Country, both in major Canadian cities and in the smaller First Nations and Inuit communities where the original film had been shot.[3]

The film won the Colin Low Award at the 2015 DOXA Documentary Film Festival.[4]

  1. ^ Randall King, "Local filmmaker gives life to footage". Winnipeg Free Press, October 24, 2014.
  2. ^ Rochelle Baker, "UFV historian tracks down long-lost film; Expert "has never seen anything equivalent" to rare and unique look at Canada from 1919". Abbotsford Times, July 31, 2012.
  3. ^ Randy Boswell, "Silent film speaks volumes; Rediscovered 1919 documentary about Canada's North sparks interest". Edmonton Journal, January 24, 2012.
  4. ^ Manori Ravindran, "'Je suis le peuple,' 'Far Fur Country' win DOXA prizes". RealScreen, May 11, 2015.