North of Superior

I first saw this the year it, and the first IMAX theatre, opened at Ontario Place in 1971. I must have seen it 50 times since as I worked there in subsequent summers and would sneak out from the employee lounge under the seating to watch the audience's reaction when the picture blows up from a small window to the full screen and they suddenly find themselves tearing along just above the waters of a northern lake.

I just noticed that it has been a regular feature at the Cinesphere this past summer and I'd go and see it again if I wasn't stuck in Vancouver. :-(

We sailed across lake Ontario from Youngstown, NY to spend weekends at Ontario Place in the early '70s. My father took me to this film. I was probably around 9 the first time. I went back on my own several times every summer to see it. I can't really find words to say how it moved me, even formed me in some way. While superficially gorgeous, it is deeply cultural and I will never forget it; it is forever rooted in my psyche.

Ultimately, this is a travelogue of Ontario north of Lake Superior, a thinly populated area of enormous forests, ancient rocks and long, cold winters. An Ontario-themed Imax movie was needed for the opening of the new Ontario Place park in Toronto in 1971 (which featured the Cinesphere, the worlds first permanent Imax theatre), and North of Superior was the result. Despite being shot in the early seventies, most of the images within it are timeless, and could just as easily have been filmed in the same places today. Like most Imax films, it is shot to thrill the audience with images that convey the impression of motion as well as any medium I've ever seen. Some Imax films seem like just a collection of spectacular images meant to show off this effect and nothing more, but North of Superior (like the best of the Imax films) does much more than this. The motion effect is well used to get across the immensity and power of nature in the area (most particularly in the opening and closing scenes, as well as the forest fire sequence), but I think the film would still have an impact without the Imax motion effect. I would dearly love to have a DVD copy, in the unlikely event that such a thing were ever made available.

This wasn't the first Imax film I ever saw, but it had a profound impact on me from the first time I saw in in 1975. The only other Imax film that has ever come close in its impact is "The Dream is Alive" -- which had much more spectacular material to work with. In days past, when admission to the Cinesphere was free with your days admission to Ontario Place, my friends and I would watch this four or five times in a row if they would let us. I've never tired of the images it offers, perfectly complemented on the soundtrack by Bill Houston's "Ojibway Country", the words of which are a perfect fit for what's on the screen. If I wanted to give someone a quick introduction to what Northern Ontario is really like, or to convey how effective Imax can be as cinema, I don't think I could do it better than to have them see "North of Superior".

This is the first, and most widely seen, of the Canadian IMAX films - a true classic that showed at Ontario Place for years. I saw it there in 1983, and years later discovered that my new wife's Father appeared in the movie (he was the game warden who hangs off the helicopter to tag a moose swimming across a lake). He has a frame of the 70mm film as a memento, but I've never found a DVD or VHS release from IMAX, even though all their newer films are available for purchase. Perhaps they feel that this one is too dated, or not exciting enough, but for those who have seen it, no doubt it is one they remember well. Also, I understand that on the 30th Anniversary of the Ontario Place IMAX (in 2001) they had a re-touched print of the film showing, and I would have thought that that might have stirred interest in a home video release. If anyone has other information on this, please add a comment here.

Recently, Ontario Place Cinesphere celebrated it's 30th anniversary, I was priveleged to be working for IMAX at the time and to see the newly retouched transfer was just as stunning as 30 years ago. I still clearly remember my mother's gasp when the film opens to the fly-over of Lake Nipigon. Bill Houston also performed "Ojibway Country" live