In 1995 I was invited by Montreal film maker Jean Lemire to be featured in a new documentary he was planning. The film would be called The Last Frontier and would take me and my work deep into the world of the Humpback Whale. This would be the first in a series of documentaries Lemire planned, combining adventure, nature and art. The film was shot over a two and a half year period; following my friend and fellow adventurer Gilles Couet and I to Labrador, Maui and Alaska.

For the film, (a co-production with Radio Canada, the CBC French network) the film crew and I were given rarely granted permission by the State of Hawaii to swim with and intimately observe the Humpback whale with their new born calves in the clear blue Pacific Ocean off the coast of Maui.

Waterlines: etching of humpback whales The documentary also traces the migration of the whales to Alaska and Labrador, where from a kayak and zodiac I paddled and observed the Humpbacks replenishing their forty ton bodies in the krill and herring rich waters of the north.

As director, Lemire does more than exquisitely capture the complex world of the whale: feeding, communicating, courting, fighting, singing and nurturing. The ground breaking accomplishment of The Last Frontier is that it allows the viewer the experience of seeing the adventure through the eyes of the artist - starting with understanding current whale research, to the emotional impact of swimming and paddling with whales, to the explosion of creative ideas and finally my execution of those ideas into penetrating drawings, canvases, monoprints and etchings.

The Last Frontier is an ambitious accomplishment in documentary nature film making. It is a film of adventure, creativity, and the pursuit of one of the many mysteries of life on this planet and its effect on the human mind and soul.

THE LAST FRONTIER , 60 min. documentary, premiered on the CBC French network in 1998 and nationally on Bravo! in 1999. It is available on video from Animavision in Montreal (514) 393-3922.
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