Director Fritz Mueller and writer Teresa Earle’s feature follows two master boat builders as they practise their art and find a way back to balance and healing.

“There is a moment during the construction of a canoe when its true form is revealed. A hull drops into place. The elegant arc of a bow cuts forth. A similar process sometimes occurs in life, when a person finally discovers their true path.”

Fashioning a dugout canoe from a single massive red cedar tree we have Alaskan Tlingit carver Wayne Price and his young apprentice, encountering silly moments and the rich transfer of traditional knowledge as they work from start to finish to bring the canoe into being.

Hand-making birch bark canoes, we meet Francophone artist Halin de Repentigny. Harvesting raw materials from the Yukon forest, Halin works in painstaking fashion to create his light, strong vessels, decorated with his art and designs – built in the style of those canoes from the rich tradition of the Voyageur.

The film celebrates the knowledge and craft these builders embody and the different traditions represented in canoes and boat building styles and methods.