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Fish'n Canada Interviews Dianne Whelan (Filmmaker, "500 Days in the Wild")
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Mar 26, 2025
Dianne Whelan, multiple award-winning Canadian filmmaker, joined the Fish'n Canada Live Webcast and spoke with FNC Host Angelo Viola about the incredible five-year journey to produce her forthcoming feature film, "500 Days in the Wild." For the past five years, Dianne has been capturing her adventure from coast to coast on the longest trail in the world. ► Subscribe http://bit.ly/youtube-fishncanada Don't forget to leave a COMMENT and give us a LIKE if you enjoyed what you saw. SUBSCRIBE for new videos and episodes released weekly! CONNECT WITH US -------------------------------- ► WEBSITE http://fishncanada.com ► FACEBOOK https://www.facebook.com/FishnCanada/ ► INSTAGRAM https://www.instagram.com/fishncanada... ► TWITTER https://twitter.com/angeloviolafnc/ One of Canada's longest-running fishing shows, Fish'n Canada travels from coast to coast in search of trophy fishing opportunities. First started by brothers Angelo and Reno Viola in 1986, The Fish’n Canada Show has been on the air for over 30 years. Today, Angelo is joined by lifelong fishing buddy, Peter Bowman, and the pair continue to travel across Canada educating anglers using the experience they’ve gained over the years
View Video Transcript
0:00
i woke up one morning and i just rolled
0:02
my head out of the tent and
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right there in front of me were three
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moose standing in the river water
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you know you could smell them you could
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hear them i mean as a filmmaker it's one
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thing i mean first of all the gift is
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just seeing those moments
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so you know right on no matter what
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happens i just saw that and that was
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amazing but
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when you can actually bring that moment
0:22
and your camera together
0:24
and actually nail it like not just get a
0:26
shot but a good shot
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it's it's nirvana man it's magic
0:30
[Music]
0:36
when i left on this journey i felt like
0:39
we used to live in a society and now we
0:41
lived in an economy
0:42
and it lost all its meaning for me
0:46
is this what you call a midlife crisis
0:58
[Music]
1:09
i left newfoundland in 2015
1:13
on a 24 000 kilometer journey across
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this land
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dan's been on a five-year solo
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trek across canada she's documenting
1:25
this this is a film that she's making
1:27
so maybe first thing you can do is is
1:29
paint that picture for us what does it
1:31
look like what does
1:32
a day look like with with diane i can
1:34
tell you that the journey has
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changed a lot from the very beginning um
1:38
when i left i really was solo
1:40
um i didn't have any money i'm an
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independent filmmaker i was applying for
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grants
1:44
but i owned my own equipment and i mean
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i'm a cinematographer and i know how to
1:49
make films by myself so
1:50
off i went on this long journey because
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i'm moving between
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mountain bike riding cross-country
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skiing snow shoeing
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mountain bike riding and of course i
2:00
think close to 8 000 kilometers i would
2:02
have paddled in a canoe
2:04
i need help moving between these
2:06
different things but i can tell you that
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that help is extremely grassroots
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um nobody's getting paid including
2:13
myself out here
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um this film is being made by the
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currency of kindness
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and that's what's so cool about all of
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it and at first of course i
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i was afraid of that i'm like how am i
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going to make a film this way
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um but actually you know one of the
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first lessons i learned on this journey
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was
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uh you are what you carry in your heart
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like whatever we create
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wherever we're going it is completely
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influenced by what we carry in our heart
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and i was told that by a mig uh elder
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named danny paul
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i got to cape breton after doing
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newfoundland about four months into the
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journey
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and i thought that i wanted to do this
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journey the old way
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and i thought the old way meant walking
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paddling
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like no no engines you know just like
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slow
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it right down and connect again instead
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of just
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you know and reconnect to myself connect
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to the environment
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um ever since i left on the journey as
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well i've
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i really wanted to pay my respects to
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the ancestors of this land
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and look as an artist of as a way of
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finding a more inclusive story i think
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really that's what our job is as
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storytellers is
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is to find a story that helps carry us
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into the future
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and i think that story is broken right
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now i was looking for wisdom
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but i didn't know i was going to find
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that wisdom in first nation
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communities and in the old way of the
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relationship to the earth
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the eye of science and the eye of
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indigenous knowledge they need to work
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together in order to get a more
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clear picture of the ecosystem it goes
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back to that same question you're asking
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is what have we forgotten we've
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forgotten to listen
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because if you listen to the land she
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speaks to you
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i think it's hard for us to see the big
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picture because we're so
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finite in our own existence but not only
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do we
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are we connected by the fact that we all
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live on this planet so we all share the
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same land and water
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but we're also all connected in that
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we're also
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all tomorrow's ancestors and that comes
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with a responsibility
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where i find my hope is in indigenous
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communities
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and in some of the traditional
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indigenous wisdom in terms of how we can
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live
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compatibly with the earth take us back
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if you could
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five years ago when when you first knew
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it was done everything was in place you
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knew and embark in this journey
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yes can you share that that moment with
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us if you could please
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sure well i don't know if anybody here
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uh ever looks at a tarot deck but
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there's one character called the fool
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and uh that was me when i left on this
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journey
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five years ago there's something about
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human passion you know like we get these
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grand ideas and
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there's nothing stopping us until of
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course you take your first step and go
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oh my god like what have i gotten myself
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into here
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um so when i left i had way too much
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weight on my mountain bike i was trying
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to carry an entire film studio
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and all my gear it turns out you don't
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need three pairs of pants maybe you just
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need one
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i don't know so uh the first 10 days
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you know i was kind of like a little bit
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more type a personality when i left too
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like
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500 days in the wild this turned into
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five years so clearly there was a shift
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in there somewhere
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and um right so i left
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thinking okay um i got my little
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schedule
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so if i go 50 kilometers a day you know
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that's what we got to hit
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and so it was day 10 and i realized i
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hadn't even hit the end of day one yet
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on my schedule
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so i had to have a really
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sober moment with myself and i'm just
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like okay
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uh what's this all about like what's the
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schedule all about
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and does it really matter and why did
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you even create this thing anyway
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and um and i just i lit a little fire
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and i just burned the schedule it just
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said let it go
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dee it's not why you're out here you're
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not out here
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for athletic achievement or anything i'm
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out here
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as an artist trying to make a film
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[Applause]
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[Music]
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there are dangers out there
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i got the bear spray
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[Music]
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did you ever find yourself wanting to
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give up
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how many times did you ever look within
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yourself and say
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who am i kidding never um partly because
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in order to make this journey i had to
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get rid of all my bills so you make a
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list of every bill you pay every month
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and go okay i gotta get rid of all of
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these because
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i'm gonna go out make this film i have
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no money usually you have to die
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to lose all your bills and i can tell
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you like
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the best advice i can give all of you is
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for one year
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do it just wow wow like who wants to run
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back to that
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right now i'm like can i build a tree
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fort like how can i live for free
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like i don't want to go back to paying
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all those bills
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like it's just crazy like work work work
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to pay for something that you're not
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even in because your work work working
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and it just
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it it actually stopped making sense to
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me and and this makes sense i mean when
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i'm out here
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and i'm just a small little human being
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and there's this
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massive world out here with birds and
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animals and trees
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and flowers i just i know my place it's
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humbling
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[Music]
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sometimes you just need to help in
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we're in this together two little
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fragile spirits
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what's been the most physically
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challenging
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uh thing that you've had to do in this
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crazy journey of yours
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every morning getting out of my tent
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angela was physically demanding i gotta
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roll and
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slowly unroll my body i mean for sure i
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feel
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my 55 years every time i wake up in the
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morning but you know it's just like once
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the engine gets going and you start
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moving
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it all starts feeling better but no i
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mean i i kept thinking oh well this pain
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is going to go away after
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i get in shape but i guess i mean it's
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five years so i'm still hurting so i i
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don't know
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i don't think so i i i keep hearing
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every time
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i every time i hear you say five years
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it just blows my mind
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you know i if i'm on the road for five
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six days in a row anymore
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hang myself at home you're talking
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five years yeah
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i know it's incredible i had no idea
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like you know hindsight right if i'd
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known it was going to take me this long
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would i have ever started it i don't
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know
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a lot of interesting things though when
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i left newfoundland i remember looking
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at the map and going okay here i'm close
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to a community oh okay great i'll feel
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safe there oh there i'll be so close to
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a community i'll feel safe there
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oh in this section i'm gonna be way in
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the middle of nowhere
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oh i'm a bit scared of that interesting
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within about six months into the journey
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it was like
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looking at a map going oh i'm going to
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be close to a community yuck
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i'm kind of scared of that oh good then
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i'm going to be out in the middle of
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nowhere a few it'll be great
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a huge paradigm shift in terms of where
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i felt safe and where i felt threatened
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no it sounds you know like like you
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started
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five years ago on this adventure and it
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has taken on an entirely different
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personality and yeah as it's
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as it's grown and and from what i'm
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hearing in your words
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a lot of that is almost spiritual is
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that right
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i think so grand chief of the migmar
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people he met me on the shores of the
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bridor lake in cape breton after i
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paddled it took me 40 days to paddle
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that lake
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and um it was amazing you know
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i didn't know he was going to be there
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he welcomed me to the land he gifted me
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a feather
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and he did he said you know um what you
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carry
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in your heart like if every step you
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take on the earth
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like every time you're taking a stroke
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of your paddle every time you're walking
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on the land
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he said every step on the trail we said
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the earth is sacred
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the earth is sacred the earth is sacred
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every stroke of our paddle on the lake
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every stroke of the paddle in the water
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the water is sacred the water is sacred
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and he said if you carry that in your
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heart on this journey you will be safe
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and i've done that and whenever there's
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any fear if i start feeling fear
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i don't feed the fear i start going the
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earth is sacred the earth is sacred the
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water is sacred the water is sacred the
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earth is sacred
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how do you top this how do you follow
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this act well i mean
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i mean i'm out here making a film right
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so the only thing harder than this trail
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as you know angelo will be for me to
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find the money
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to finish the film in post-production
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and then to get it out there to the
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world and as an independent that's a
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massive endeavor docklands is a film
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festival
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run by the california film institute 500
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days is the only canadian film project
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that made the finals
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and it's crap i know and you helped
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thanks
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angelo and regardless of the outcome i'm
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i can tell you that the
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number of people who uh voted for this
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project and let me know that they voted
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for this project
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made my heart very soft i had a few
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tears um just
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yeah you can feel pretty alone out here
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sometimes and just knowing that um
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like people just came out of the
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woodwork to vote for us i just want
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everyone to know that voted for us that
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um
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how touched and how soft that made my
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heart i have
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affiliated myself now with canadian
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parks and wilderness because they're a
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non-profit society they're non-political
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they're all just about
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saving canadian parks and wildlife and
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areas for wildlife to live
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and you know protecting our waters so we
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have the exact same message
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and it's this very sincere collaboration
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and they have a non-profit they're
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non-profit
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so that means if you are if you feel
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called and if you're inspired by this
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journey
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and you want to help you can make a
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tax-free donation
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uh through the cpaws website and some of
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that money 15
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of that money will go to them some of
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that money comes to me and the money
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that comes to me is all going into
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post-production
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i don't need a lot of money to live out
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here i'm a very simple person
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um so but post-production costs money i
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can do production from the kindness of
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people but post-production as you know
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angelo there's there's only one
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i need del rey me for the
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post-production i got to pay editors and
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it's got to get color corrected and
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sound mixed and all of that
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come this far we're going to make a
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beautiful piece of art so if you feel
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called and you want to make a donation
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you can do that through c-paws you're
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going to be helping a great non-profit
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and you're going to help this film get
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made
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and i'm going to put everybody's name
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who donates is going on the credit list
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because
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without you i can't do it if this show
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so far has not moved you
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we there is no help there's no help for
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you
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take care dude take care
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bye everybody
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the other 50 year old women are doing
13:29
today
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