PhilPaine.com

Sami-Nor­we­gian adven­tur­er Lars Mors­en trav­els from Alas­ka to Labrador by dog sled, canoe, skis, and on foot. The route he takes cross­es noth­ing but tun­dra, taiga, and bore­al for­est. That kind of adven­ture is known as “thru-hik­ing”, and this is one of the most extreme exam­ples of it. The jour­ney took two years and sev­en months. There are occa­sion­al stops in out­posts like Arc­tic Red Riv­er, Churchill, and Mis­tassi­ni along the way, but most­ly he is alone with his dogs. He films him­self with a hand­held, and talks to him­self and the dogs (and the occa­sion­al bear), in untrans­lat­ed Nor­we­gian, but if you’ve spent any time in this kind of envi­ron­ment, you nev­er have trou­ble guess­ing what he’s say­ing. This long doc­u­men­tary (280 min­utes — it was split up into episodes for tv broad­cast in Nor­way) won’t be every­one’s cup of tea, but I found it enter­tain­ing. But I was enter­tained by ani­mal behav­iour, his bush savvy, and dif­fer­ences in land­scape and veg­e­ta­tion that oth­ers might not notice or care about. If you like see­ing the nit­ty-grit­ty of being in the bush, with­out any extra­ne­ous nar­ra­tion, then give it a try.