The film We Belong To It is the work of multiple-award winning film maker and photographer Goh Iromoto, who has produced an inspirational film of Mears’ recent wilderness canoeing trip into Northern Ontario’s Wabakimi Provincial park.
The evocative and thought-provoking 13-minute short recently won top honours in the Canoeing category at the 10th annual Reel Paddling Film Festival.
With sumptuous use of slow-motion footage, Mears is shown paddling his Canadian canoe across clear, velvety waters, while a soft, slow acoustic guitar soundtrack accompanies the woodsman’s own reflective voiceover, only broken by the sound of water trickling off his paddle.
During the short film, Mears explains his own philosophy of how bushcraft is merely learning to adapt to and make the best of the wilderness’ ample resources: “It’s not about pitching yourself against nature but learning to bend your flow to hers,” he says.
As Mears paddles along the granite, boreal forested shorelines of this 3,440 square mile park he tells us how he believes the canoe to be the greatest invention of human kind: “It’s the definition of bushcraft: someone working out how to use natural resources to make a boat and float across the water.”
Speaking of portages with heavy gear, headwinds, and exposure to the elements, for Mears canoeing is an ‘honest way to travel’. “The spiritual enrichment you gain from paddling in a place like Wabakimi, you gain in a very honest way.”
Split into chapters with titles like Bushcraft, Leap into the Woods, and the Harmony of the Woodsman, Iromoto’s film gently showcases Mears’ lovingly practiced skills in wild camping, cooking, and woodwork, all set to the backdrop of pristine wilderness.
This mesmeric cinematic call to the wild finishes with Mears quoting a legendary Canadian explorer called Grey Owl: “We must remember… that in the end… nature does not belong to us; we belong to it.”
Find out more about the We Belong To It film on Ray Mears’ Woodlore blog.
For more on great Ontario adventures and for a chance of winning a trip with Ray Mears as your guide like the one in the video, go to Ontariotravel.net
WE BELONG TO IT. from GOH on Vimeo.
