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LMGI COMPASS
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Spring 2020
Last year, LMGI business partner NWT Film Commission, headed by Camilla MacEachern, invited
LMGI members Robbie Boake, Ed Mazurek, Meredith Hodder and Ken Brooker, along with producers
Gary Harvey and Amanda Verhagen, to experience some of the hidden treasures of Canada's Far
North. The group travelled from Belfast, Los Angeles and Vancouver and upon arrival received a
very warm reception hosted by the local media association in concert with both the municipal and
territorial governments. Attendees were able to connect with local producers, vendors and "gate-
keepers" and were given the very clear message that NWT is open for business.
The tour focused largely on areas around Yellowknife (NWT's capital). Highlights of the trip
included a boat tour of the floating community on Yellowknife Bay, a day trip to Blachford Lake
Lodge, a tour and meet-and-greet with the people of Dettah (First Nations community on the edge
of Great Slave Lake), Aurora Village, as well as seeing the local sites in and around Yellowknife like
Old Town and Buffalo Airways with a fleet of vintage WW2 troop and transport aircraft. Without
question, the crown jewel of the trip was saved for last as the group travelled South to tour Nahanni
National Park. Quoting Robbie Boake, over and over again, "You're kidding me!" as unbelievable
locations presented themselves, one after the other. The group stopped at Little Doctor Lake,
Glacier Lake at the foot of the Cirque of the Unclimbables, and finally at Virginia Falls. Nahanni is
a pristine untouched place roughly the size of Belgium, and its beauty leaves you awestruck and
speechless.
After a whirlwind five days, the trip finished on the Summer Solstice at a privately catered dinner
of local delicacies harvested directly from the land. Robert Service once wrote, "Strange things
are done in the midnight sun…" and so it was with our group of travellers who came to see that
somewhere out there, just within reach, on the edge of extraordinary, there is something beyond
belief.
Photo by Robbie Boake/LMGI
