Survivorman star releases doc on healing nature experience with students from La Loche
The 8 high school students were recovering from a tragedy when they went on a canoe trip led by Les Stroud
Nature can be a powerful healer, according to La Loche, a recently released Les Stroud documentary.
The film shows how a group of La Loche high school students, struggling after a murderous rampage in their community, and Stroud, an outdoor survival expert, turned a canoe trip into a healing journey.
Six years ago, on Jan. 22, a student from La Loche's Dene High School shot and killed two boys in a home before going to the school, where he killed two staff members and injured seven other people. The 10-day trip in the spring of 2017 came about 16 months after the tragedy in La Loche, a small community about 590 km northwest of Saskatoon.
"The main point of this film is that nature heals, that it can heal, that it's powerful enough to heal regardless of what you do," said Stroud, who is known for his hit TV series Survivorman, about surviving alone in remote wilderness. The students "were being healed, to some extent, just by being there."
Time in nature
The trip was the brainchild of Virginia Beebe, who was then a counsellor at the high school. She ran what was known as the Man Group, made up of teenage boys, who identified as needing extra support to ensure graduation.
Beebe used nature as a tool to help them. And they were planning the canoe trip when one of the students in the group went on the murderous rampage. In the aftermath, Beebe wanted to do something special for the eight boys still in the group and she reached out to Stroud, who is based in Huntsville, about 230 km north of Toronto, to see if he would lead the trip.
WATCH | Les Stroud speaks about the Saskatchewan canoe trip:
To her surprise, Stroud said yes.
Stroud, who was made an ambassador for Scouts Canada in December, had already led hundreds of outdoor trips with youth. But when he flew into the remote Northern Saskatchewan town on a float plane, he realized that this one would be different.
"I had time to just look around at what was beneath me, then and there. It dawned on me. Your whole psyche just goes: Are you prepared? Because this isn't going to be simple, this is going to be emotional, and it's going to be spiritual, and it's going to be impactful," he said.
Stroud didn't have an agenda. He didn't bring any camera crews. It would just be him, the boys, the teachers and the elders. He did bring along some cameras, and he let the boys film what they wanted.
He also witnessed the boys' transformation.
"You can see that journey in the film, from disrespecting the tobacco ceremony — to the end, where they're saying: 'I'm going to go places, I'm going to do something,' and that's heart gripping," Stroud said.
The boys were still reeling from the tragedy when they embarked on the trip, said Alex Mendez, an English teacher at the school at the time, who went on the trip.
"It was still fresh on everybody's mind," he said. "Those boys, some of them were still going through a very hard time. And you see some of that in the movie, as well."
Mendez said the group had received some basic training from Paddle Canada months before the trip, but it didn't fully prepare them.
Rough waters
"We were trying to cross Lloyd Lake in some heavy weather, and it was hard paddling. These are kids that weren't necessarily physically active regularly,"`Mendez said. "We were cold. We were wet. The waves were swamping the canoe. You were almost tipping. And they really hit a wall."
Once they pushed through that first day, the boys' spirits lifted. They were even singing the next day.
In the film, the boys open up about their families and that fateful day on Jan. 22, 2016.
Stroud was struck by their words and experience.
"The boys painted a 3D picture for you of how it all happened and where they were and what happened. Which is terrifying," he said.
Stroud, Beebe, Mendez and the elders all saw how nature helped the boys and they still get emotional when they talk about it.
Mendez said the trip really made a difference.
"It was a turning point for those boys, but it also had ripple effects for that community in that it really changed the culture of education at Dene High School. It sowed the seeds for the Dene High School Outdoor Education program," he said.
Most of the group now have their high school diplomas, but some are still struggling.
CBC reached out to the young men to see if they'd like to comment, but they declined, asking for their privacy to be respected.
Making progress
Beebe keeps in touch with them and said she's proud of how they've progressed in their lives.
"When you watch the film, see what they are struggling with, we all go through that," Beebe said. "The human experience is to go through challenges and to come out on top."
And Stroud said the trip reminded him of the importance of nature.
"Everyday of our lives that natural world is there waiting to heal us," he said.
The La Loche documentary premiered on YouTube on Jan. 14.
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With files from Morning Edition