Filmmaker launches book and documentary about Canadian Arctic

continued

On October 25, 2009, the National Film Board of Canada was proud to announce that Whelan's film took the top Canadian short film award at the closing-night ceremony of the Planet in Focus International Environmental Film & Video Festival in Toronto. With a mesmerizing soundtrack by Nunavut-born singer and narrator Tanya Tagaq and spectacular footage of the Arctic landscape, British Columbia filmmaker/photographer/journalist Dianne Whelan's documentary and book capture the epic adventure with raw immediacy.

Whelan's book and film detail her experiences travelling to the Canadian Arctic to document a Canadian sovereignty patrol in the spring of 2007. She accompanies members of the Canadian Forces and the Canadian Rangers on a dangerous 2,000-kilometre journey to raise a flag at Ward Hunt Island, the northernmost tip of Canada and only 684 kilometres from the North Pole.

Whelan was the first woman to accompany the Rangers on this never-before patrolled route of the northwestern coast of Ellesmere Island, and she had to endure gruelling conditions and many mental and physical challenges to complete the trip. The book and film discuss both the political significance of the Canadian High Arctic and the impact of climate change on the area.

Dianne Whelan is an award-winning Canadian photographer and journalist. She has a degree in political theory from McGill University and documentary film production from Capilano University. She is currently in pre-production for her next book and film project, 40 Days at Base Camp, which will take place at 17,000 feet on Mount Everest in the spring of 2010. Whelan lives on BC’s Sunshine Coast.

For more information, or to schedule an interview with Dianne Whelan, please contact Marisa Alps or Berglind Kristinsdottir at Harbour Publishing
marisa@harbourpublishing.com or berglind@harbourpublishing.com
phone: 604-883-2730, fax: 604-883-9451

For more information about the film, visit www.nfb.ca/viff.

Home / About us / Author bios / Writer's info / Catalogue / Order