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500 Days in the Wild is a fea­ture docu­men­ta­ry that wea­ves inti­ma­te moments of reflec­tion with adven­ture and sto­ries of the peo­p­le and com­mu­ni­ties that she encoun­te­red along the way.

Climate chan­ge is a silent the­me unfol­ding in the land­scapes; mel­ting per­ma­frost in the Arctic, sal­mon in the Mackenzie river, record-brea­king 120°F heat and fires in the BC interior.

This jour­ney began on July 1, 2015, in St. John’s NL and ended on August 1, 2021 in Victoria, BC. Although the Trans-Canada trail was built to cele­bra­te 150 years of con­fe­de­ra­ti­on under the government’s ban­ner of “Strong, Proud and Free,” 500 Days in the Wild will pre­sent an alter­na­te sto­ry, ano­ther visi­on of this coun­try, its past and its future.

There are adven­ture sce­nes of paddling rapids, strugg­ling in storms, esca­ping a bear attemp­ting to des­troy her camp in the High Arctic or the peri­ls of being alo­ne in a canoe on one of the big­gest inland seas in the world. And the­re is of cour­se humour —many good bel­ly laughs about the absur­di­ty of the situa­tions she occa­sio­nal­ly found hers­elf in.

“It’s kind of fun­ny when I think about it now. When I left I actual­ly had a dai­ly schedule—and by day 10 I had not even com­ple­ted what I thought I could do in one day. So I lit a small fire and bur­ned the sche­du­le. And I stop­ped mea­su­ring my jour­ney by how many kilo­me­t­res I did in a day. I joke with peo­p­le and tell them that’s the day I drop­ped the rab­bit suit.”

CA 2023, 120 Min., engl. OV
Directed by Dianne Whelan
Written by Dianne Whelan
Tanya Maryniak
Produced by Betsy Carson
Starring Dianne Whelan
Cinematography Dianne Whelan
Edited by Tanya Maryniak