Kevin Wild's Superb "42 Days Alone"

This is just a quick note on Kevin Wild’s exhilarating seven-hour-forty-seven-minute YouTube video 42 Days Alone: A Perilous 650 km Solo Journey Across the Labrador Wilderness. I’m currently immersed in it. I’m on Day 23. “Immersion” is the right word for the experience of watching this incredible documentary. Wild’s skilful camerawork (including breathtaking drone footage) and sound recording put me right there with him in his seemingly indestructible red Prospector canoe as he paddles wild rivers and lakes, portages over boulder-strewn land thick with willow, runs menacing rapids, and battles blood-thirsty hordes of mosquitoes and black flies. Along the way, he sees bears, moose, caribou, eagles, lynx, and the aurora borealis. He catches trout. He camps, makes fires, cooks, swims, and every now and then has a taste of whiskey to celebrate the completion of a particularly arduous stage of his journey. Wild is an excellent canoeist and outdoorsman. His commentary is always intelligent and illuminating. The rugged, magnificent Labrador landscape he travels through is wild to the limits of the term. This is the best wilderness travel video I’ve ever seen. Highly recommended.