Bill Mason slips his canoe into the early morning calm and it cuts silently through the water, disappearing into the mist.... This is not a shot in one of Mason's famous films, it is just another day of commuting to the office.
Bill Mason:Wilderness Artist is the story of Canada's most famous canoeing artist. The camera lens and the pallet knife were his instruments.The wild places were his inspiration.
Bill's first film for the National Film Board of Canada, Paddle to the Sea, won 11 awards and was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Short Film in 1968. His work was nominated again in 1970 in the same category for his documentary Blake. By the mid-1970s Bill had become one of Canada's most successful documentary.
Bill Mason:Wilderness Artist examines Bill's entire artistic career—his photography, cartoons, books and films. Created with the full cooperation of the Mason family, this book provides insight into a man driven by a passion for nature.
Nostalgia is a bittersweet thing. Something that one sees in their adulthood awakens a memory from childhood and one ponders the memory of it all. Recently I stumbled across Ken Buck's Bill Mason: Wilderness Artist from Heart to Hand and I had a flash back to my public-school days.
Page 10 Bill Mason slipped his canoe into the early calm; the canoe cut silently through the water and was swallowed up by the mist. The sun was just breaking over the forest walls, creating a diffused light illuminating emerging details along the shoreline. Soft silhouettes of trees took shape overhead. This was not a shot in one of his famous canoe films. For Bill it was just another day at the office, or to be more precise, another day of commuting to the office.