There are oh so many, singular, memorable images in Luke Gleeson’s Wədzįh Nəne’ (aka Caribou Country).
The film is so beautiful, and meditative in its execution, that it is almost possible to forget that it is a call to action against the Canadian government handing out oil and gas extraction licenses like candy. If an activist-documentary could be described as Malick-ian, then this is that doc.
Gleeson narrates the film along with his grandfather, from their property on the Tsay Keh Dene First Nation. The 90-year-old man watches vintage black & white Muhammad Ali boxing matches on his tiny television, as he considers how much things have changed in his lifetime, even up in the North. The world-famous prizefighter floats like a butterfly in the reflection of the elder’s thick eye-glasses.
Details like this are a subtle signal for the viewer to look closer, to lean into into the complex images here. It goes without saying this is a theatrical experience that will benefit from the biggest canvas possible. With a lot of helicopter and drone shots of the Northern British Wilderness, things look as epic and magnificent as one can imagine, even if new roads and patches of clear-cutting are visible on many of the long-static shots.
The film follows not just the Gleeson’s thoughts on the how the land used to be and where it is going. There is time spent with biologists tracking the Porcupine Caribou population, a sub-species of reindeer who live on the barren lands in the summer months. They forage for food in the alpine regions during the winter, where the snow slides down the sides of the steep land to expose food for them.
The great herds have been dwindling for years, both from man and the ever increasing wolf and grizzly bear populations. But the clear-cutting and and speculation roads are placing barriers to their migration patterns. Caribou need a lot of land, and the young forests that spring up in the wake of extraction (or fire) do not cover the landscape in the same way to preserve forage for the herd.
There is an effort to tag and track and map the bulls of the various herds, was well as the regional wolves, bears and wolverines, to form a visual ecological topology. These are seasoned professionals who make the job look much easier than it probably is. Watching the contrasting way of the tagging different species is thoroughly cinematic. A drugged wolf hangs out its tongue while they place the tracking collar on. As it breathes steadily, the ice-crystals clinging to fur in the sunshine rise up and down, scatting the light. This is in contrast to the “more gentle” leaping from the helicopter and netting the caribou to tag it without drugs or restraint (which can cause the animal's heart to stop) and release in one quick motion.
Gorgeous (as is every frame of this film) time-lapsed graphical overlays contrast the GPS data of the wildlife migratory paths through the terrain, as gathered over several years. This is mirrored with another set of graphics that time-lapse the road building, the mining and the clear-cutting. It is an effective and dramatic visualisation of how everything has changed in the last 50 years.
A low-pitched, dirging score underlines the tone of the film in a way, that other pieces of activism, or background style TV nature documentaries would never do. This kind of filmmaking is not new to Gleeson. His previous film, Dəne Yi’Injetl (The Scattering of Man) examined the effects on the community from the 1960s W.A.C. Bennett Dam construction and hydro electricity project.
While many of the herds are not formally classified as endangered as of 2025, they have dramatically shrunk in size. The thesis of Caribou Country is that preservation should not start at the point where a species is recognised as endangered, but rather understanding the signs and pathways that will push an ecosystem to the brink.
The film also follows a outfitter family who live off the land and run horsebacks excursions into the deep wilderness. The business owner remarks that there was a time, not long ago, where he would never see a road or a patch of cut forest during his long haul trips with his guest. That time is rapidly heading into the rear-view mirror. There may be no singular clear solutions here, but all agree that the Government is moving too slow, and too eager to appease industry (who are not represented here, for obvious reasons.)
There are many, and I have to think they are intentional, shots of the fuelling of vehicles. At one point, there is also an establishing shot of Mackenzie, British Columbia, that features a truck with heavy logs zooming past. The point Gleeson is trying to make here, I believe, is that there is a balance between man and the land, even one that includes some industrial scale extraction. But this is not our current reality, and either the government is on the wrong side of this, or trapped in its own glacial bureaucracy, to be on the right side.
It is up to those at the ground zero, the First Nations, the settlers who live and work off the land in a sustainably responsible way, and the scientists to be the collective grass roots bulwark against the loss which we as a country will come to regret. Getting the knowledge from our elders, and capturing the stories of the land are a way to build oneself to the task, and perhaps recognize that the time is now, to stop floating like a butterfly, and to sting like a bee.
The film screened at the 2026 Available Light Film Festival.