For some reason there’s not much I remember from my childhood. A couple months ago, however, something reminded me of a short film we saw in elementary school. I haven’t thought about it in maybe 35 years but lately I’ve been thinking about it all the time, and I want to know more about it. I’d like to try and track it down for my kids.
As I recall there was no dialogue. It was about a young boy, maybe 10-12, who carves a small boat out of wood. I think his father or grandfather showed him how. He also carved a Native American Indian sitting in the boat, which was about a foot long. He gouged out a groove in the bottom into which he poured something, probably molten lead, to keep it upright. He painted it.
When it dried he took it outside; it was winter and he was at the top of a hill. He set it down in the snow and the camera followed it as it slid down the snowy slope, through trees and brush, eventually landing in a stream. We watched it bob and float along down the stream; here’s where things get hazy. I think we spent a lot of time watching it make its way down the stream, and possibly it eventually ended up in larger and larger bodies of water, maybe the ocean.
I think it ended up with the boy somehow getting it back- either he found it himself, or someone recovered it and got it back to him- not really sure. It was such a cool little film. I really wish I knew more about it.
So, Teeming Millions, does anyone have any idea what I’m talking about?
Oh wow. I was in kindergarten when I was shown this. My memory of it is uncannily close to the OPs. From time to time this movie’s entered my thoughts, and a very vague, nostalgic and cloudy way.
I’m gonna click on the link now, having not seen it about 33 years. Wow…
I have the vaguest recollection of seeing this, like cmyk, probably over 30 years ago. (After watching the first few minutes, I remember the kid pouring the strip of lead in the bottom of the canoe.) Wild. I had forgotten all about this.
Now, any other Michiganders around remember watching “The Rise and Fall of the Great Lakes”? That was a true classic; one of the few educational films that could make the whole class bust out laughing, and not even in an unintentional way.
The Rise And Fall Of The Great Lakes is one I like even more than Paddle To The Sea. That poor canoeist! I might have that movie bookmarked. I’ll have to look.
Anybody else remember, I think it was called… God’s Little Acre, or something like that? Maybe it was God’s Half Acre, I’m not sure. Funny to think of watching a movie with a name like that, but hey, it was the 70’s, things were different. I’d like to see that one again, all threaded up and with the lights turned off in the room, and my head on the desk, looking up…
We were shown films about the correct way to drive a tractor around a hill. Paddle to the Sea would have been too avent (sp) garde.
But I wish I’d seen it.
