The Last Dogs of Winter

The majority of Canadians may recognize the Canadian Eskimo dog, or qimmiq, from the commemorative coins and stamps on which they have been depicted. It is no small irony, however, that the latest documentary from New Zealand filmmaker Costa Botes (Forgotten Silver) explores one man’s little-known struggle to preserve this animal, the rarest registered breed of dog in the world, from extinction.

Our introduction to the story comes through Caleb Ross, a young New Zealander who came to Canada for love. When that love went south, Caleb, not knowing what to do but always ready for adventure, traveled north. He read about a dog sanctuary in Churchill, Manitoba, on the bulletin board of a Toronto hostel. What was intended as a month-long holiday became an inspiring three-year commitment to the dogs and their main protector, Brian Ladoon.

In 1976, Ladoon took on the self-imposed task of preserving and breeding Canadian Eskimo dogs. Thousands of these dogs once flourished in the pitiless northern climate as crucial partners to the Inuit people, but the introduction of the Ski-Doo, along with disease and organized culling, reduced their numbers to just hundreds by the late sev­enties. Ladoon, an idiosyncratic raconteur and often combative man, has sustained criticism from a faction of Churchill resi­dents who decry the animals being kept on a barren point of land that intersects with migrating polar bears, but none can refute his profound knowledge of the breed and his dedication to their survival. Incidents between the two wild species are few, and some of the most remarkable footage in the film depicts these fierce dogs and enormous bears playing together.

Frolicking aside, Botes captures the remorseless northern landscape — as well as the political, financial and meteorological struggles that Ladoon and Ross face in pre­serving the qimmiq — with a raw energy and relentless honestly. Captivating and compel­ling, The Last Dogs Of Winter is a film about wildlife — and one wild life. –TIFF