Inspired by Kwaxsistalla, a Kwakwaka’wakw clan chief, the filmmaker embarks upon a cinematic journey contrasting the tree-farms that dominate the landscape surrounding his home on Vancouver Island with an ancient rainforest on the Pacific Coast of Canada.
Guided by passion and a determination to honor reality, Richard Boyce travels to the most remote corner of Vancouver Island, through some of the most intensive logging on the planet, into a wilderness that is on the brink of extinction. Massive trees, ranging in age between 1,200 years old and seedlings, thrive along the banks of an ancient river floodplain, which provides for diverse life forms in the temperate rainforest. This film is an evocative journey, contrasting forestry as practiced for ten thousand years by First Nation’s people with modern logging.
Directed by Richard Boyce