The Last Trapper

Director Vanier, with his regular cinematographer, Thierry Machado, spent one year following Norman, his wife (here called Nebaska) and their dog-sled team, in order to bring us an insight into the amazing life that his subjects live. We witness the hardships, the challenges, and the tragedies, but most of all the glorious scenery. The Yukon is truly an inspiring, jaw-droppingly beautiful landscape, and the filmmakers capture it to full effect, beginning with a stunning opening overhead shot that pans along a frozen river and tracks Norman as he drives his sled team. This is followed by shots of a milling herd of elk in the swirling morning mist and then a bear splashing in the river as it hunts fish. We see Norman paddling his canoe, with his favourite dog, Nanook, on an impossibly glorious autumn day. The beauty is almost too much!

Story-wise, we follow a typical year, with a minimal amount of dialogue and voice-over. Norman expounds how he and his wife live in total harmony with the wild, living a simple life at their own pace, taking only what they need from the environment. They build a new cabin from scratch, tan hides for clothing and sale, fish in frozen ice holes, and gather berries from the forest. There is a semblance of plot after Nanook’s accidental death, Norman gets a new dog, Apache, which proves to be a literal life-saver and later Norman drives for days to visit another old trapper buddy, Alex. Between these small plot points, there is constantly the beauty of animals and landscape: cute beavers building dams, the amazing Northern Lights, the glory of a sunset over the frozen landscape.

The film also gets into a bit of eco-philosophy as Norman tells us that guys like him are vital to the eco-system as they only trap the weak of the species and thus preserve the strongest. (Hmm! Could be a specious argument!) But the greatest threat to the ecosystem, he explains, are the logging companies which are fast running him out of business and destroying his trap lines.

Original music by Krishna Levy, with an almost Celtic feel, adds immeasurably to the grandeur, but the use of the Leonard Cohen song, Babylon, seemed a bit out of place. There are also a couple of rather dodgy scenes in which Norman’s horses are ridden into a turbulent river, causing major distress to the animals, and another of the dog team struggling in frozen water. Yet despite the questionable ethics of parts of the film, and the sometimes stilted feel of mixing real life with scripted dialogue, the natural beauty is so overwhelming that you can’t help but be taken along for a magic ride!

Want more about this film?

Want something different?