The Boundary Waters, America’s most visited wilderness area, is currently facing a dire and harrowing threat to its pristine beauty. The toxic endeavor of sulfide-ore mining has been proposed by a Chilean company with a track record of disasters and fines. A single mine along the watershed could potentially pollute the area for the next five centuries. In the history of this type of mining, pollution has never been avoided.

The film A Northern Light follows Riverhorse Nakadate as he makes his way by canoe through endless miles of wilderness to celebrate the stunning and surreal lakes and forests, illuminate and juxtapose the serious and perilous threats at hand, and to show a deep poetic reverence to the last remaining places of incomparable beauty. Riverhorse uses his personal journals to narrate the film with sensual and candid reflections of the journey while traversing the achingly beautiful terrain. A Northern Light explores how wilderness is everything in life─equal parts restorative, healing, inspiring, and bewildering. And perhaps most importantly, how nature is where we make sense of life, love, and our place within it.