• Source: Paddle-to-the-Sea

      • Paddle-to-the-Sea is a 1941 children's book, written and illustrated by American author/artist Holling C. Holling and published by Houghton Mifflin. It was recognized as a Caldecott Honor Book in 1942.
      The film Paddle to the Sea, based on this book but omitting many details, was produced by the National Film Board of Canada in 1966, directed by Bill Mason. It was nominated for an Oscar.
      A water park based on the book was opened in 2016 in the town of Nipigon, where the fictional journey begins.


      Plot


      At Lake Nipigon, Ontario, a First Nation boy carves a wooden model of an “Indian” in a canoe. On its side he roughly carves the words "Please put me back in the water. I am Paddle-to-the-Sea" and sets it free to travel the Great Lakes to the Atlantic Ocean. The story follows the progress of the little wooden canoe and paddler on their journey. It travels the Nipigon River wedged in a log of wood, and is rescued by a French-Canadian lumberjack just as it is going under the saw. He puts it back in the water. It is picked up several more times, but the inscription is always obeyed. At one point, a man finds the inscription very worn and adds a metal plate bearing similar words. As the canoe travels, those who send it on its way scratch their locations on the metal plate. It traverses all five Great Lakes (including going over Niagara Falls) and the St. Lawrence River. Finally after four years it arrives off Newfoundland at the Atlantic Ocean. There it is retrieved for the last time in the nets of a French trawler on the Grand Banks, and is taken to France. Its long journey is written up in a French newspaper. A copy arrives at the sawmill on the Nipigon River, sent from France by the cousin of the lumberjack. By chance, the original maker, now a grown man, is working there as a local guide and he also sees the newspaper. He recognizes his handiwork, but does not draw attention to it, and the book ends with his words of pride, spoken only to himself.
      Each movement of the canoe is celebrated by a short chapter, suitable for reading aloud to a child and decorated with black-and-white sketches and at least one full-page watercolor, all by the author. The sketches accompany the larger story and tell smaller narrative stories of their own: for example, one sketch demonstrates how a sawmill works by visually outlining the progress of a log of timber towards a mechanical saw.


      Further reading


      Holling, Holling C. (1941). Paddle-to-the-Sea. Boston: Houghton Mifflin. ISBN 0-395-15082-5.


      References




      External links



      Bill Mason (director) (1966). Paddle to the Sea (Motion picture). Louis Applebaum (music); Stanley Jackson (narrator). National Film Board of Canada.{{cite AV media}}: CS1 maint: others in cite AV media (notes) (link)

    • Source: Paddle to the Sea

      • Paddle to the Sea (French: Vogue-à-la-mer) is a 1966 National Film Board of Canada short live-action film directed, shot and edited by Bill Mason. It is based on the 1941 children's book Paddle-to-the-Sea by American author and illustrator Holling C. Holling, and follows the adventures of a child's hand-carved toy Indian in a canoe as it makes its way from Lake Superior to the Gulf of Saint Lawrence, through Canada's waterways. It was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Live Action Short Film at the 40th Academy Awards.


      Production


      While the story begins near Lake Nipigon, the launch scene was shot in Gatineau Park. Other shooting locations included a staged forest fire at Meech Lake, with Mason torching spruce trees that he had installed along the shoreline, and the local fire department on standby. Mason and colleague Blake James did not ask for permission to climb over the safety fence to film the sequence of the little boat going over the Horseshoe Falls: they rappeled down to the water's edge, with James casting the boat into the water and Mason filming. The filmmaker taught himself to carve in order to make the boats, which had to be replaced when they drifted off at sea—or were lost over Niagara Falls.


      Differences from book


      The film differs from the children's book in its inclusion of the problem of water pollution. While Holling's 1941 book focuses only on the geography and commercial importance of the Great Lakes and Saint Lawrence River, Mason's film includes a sequence where the tiny boat must endure polluted waters, shot on Lake Superior near Marathon, Ontario.


      Awards


      Yorkton Film Festival, Yorkton, Saskatchewan: First Place, Creative Arts and Experimental Films, 1967
      Salerno Film Festival, Salerno, Italy: First Prize, Information Films, 1967
      American Film and Video Festival, New York: Blue Ribbon, Stories for Children, 1967
      International Educational Film Festival, Tehran, Iran: Golden Delfan, First Prize, Educational Films for Children, 1967
      La Plata International Children's Film Festival, La Plata: Silver Plaque, 1968
      Film Critics and Journalists Association of Ceylon, Colombo, Sri Lanka: Certificate of Merit, 1969
      International Festival of Short Films, Philadelphia: Award for Exceptional Merit, 1971
      Educational Film Library Association of America, New York - Sightlines Magazine list of 10 Best Films of the Last Ten Years, 1968
      International Film & Television Festival of New York: Silver Medal, Education, Language Arts, 1987
      40th Academy Awards, Los Angeles: Nominee: Best Live Action Short Film, 1968


      Post-release notes


      To attend the Academy Awards in Los Angeles, Mason drove down from Canada with a canoe on his car roof, stopping at rivers along the way. Today, the Canadian Museum of History has one of Mason's hand-carved canoe replicas; his family has several more.
      Season 1, Episode 1 (The Loop) of Tales from the Loop television series has the characters watching Paddle to the Sea at 30:15.


      References




      Works cited


      Evans, Gary (1991). In the National Interest: A Chronicle of the National Film Board of Canada from 1949 to 1989. University of Toronto Press. ISBN 0802027849.


      External links


      Watch Paddle to the Sea at NFB.ca
      The short film Paddle to the Sea is available for free viewing and download at the Internet Archive.
      Paddle to the Sea at IMDb
      Paddle to the Sea at the TCM Movie Database

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