MOOSE HUNTING WITH THE BOARDS OF CANADA

My mom's uncle, Al, lives in Anahim Lake, BC and is a true outdoors kind of guy. Close to 80 if not more, Al still lives in a small log cabin and is a real story-teller. In the 40's and 50's he was a hunter but in the 60's he traded the gun in for a 16mm Bolex camera which he has given to me. He taught himself everything he needed to know about shooting film and editing and used this camera to document life in Anahim. Not too long ago, my mom's cousin, had Al come to Vancouver and transfer his various films to video. They put an earnest soundtrack to accompany the films and Al did a voice-over narration/commentary to the films as well, and when you hear Al speak, you hear a story-teller. He's a natural.

I digitized his films recently (unfortunately from a VHS copy) and will post selections of these films soon. I have three of them. One is on the Anahim Rodeo, another is on a beaver hunting trip via vintage ski-doos and the third is on a moose hunt. When I say they go hunting, it's not just for the sport of it. These hunting trips are for survival and making a living. When they kill a moose, they take every single part of that moose out of the woods with them.

For this post, I've edited the moose hunt footage down to 5 minutes (from 20) and put it to "Dayvan Cowboy" by The Boards of Canada.

click image for Quicktime (05:00 - 11.2 mb)