Tom Radford

It is easy to overlook Herschel Island – a tiny speck of land just off the Yukon coast – where the Inuvialuit hunter Nuligak once followed the great journeys of caribou, polar bears, and whales. The island lays silently on the margins of geography, entrapped in the footnotes of history, a forgotten place frozen in time. It was on Herschel Island that a young Inuvialuit boy, Nuligak (later named Bob Cockney by the missionaries) came of age — fascinated by Herschel, but equally repelled by the excess of so-called civilization. Through Nuligak’s touching yet tragic life story, expressed through his writings and echoed by his grandchildren’s poignant return to the Island, we are offered a unique view into an often troubling past and a potentially hopeful future.

An amateur hockey player talks about his life, his love affair with hockey and his supposed one time shot in the big time

In an oil-scarce world, we know there are sacrifices to be made in the pursuit of energy. What no one expected was that a tiny Native community, living down the river from Canada's tar sands, would reach out to the world for help — and be heard.

In an oil-scarce world, we know there are sacrifices to be made in the pursuit of energy. What no one expected was that a tiny Native community, living down the river from Canada's tar sands, would reach out to the world for help — and be heard.

It is easy to overlook Herschel Island – a tiny speck of land just off the Yukon coast – where the Inuvialuit hunter Nuligak once followed the great journeys of caribou, polar bears, and whales. The island lays silently on the margins of geography, entrapped in the footnotes of history, a forgotten place frozen in time. It was on Herschel Island that a young Inuvialuit boy, Nuligak (later named Bob Cockney by the missionaries) came of age — fascinated by Herschel, but equally repelled by the excess of so-called civilization. Through Nuligak’s touching yet tragic life story, expressed through his writings and echoed by his grandchildren’s poignant return to the Island, we are offered a unique view into an often troubling past and a potentially hopeful future.

Tom Radford's documentary chronicles the life of Chester Ronning, best remembered for his close and longstanding relationship with China. Over the course of his life, Ronning worked as a cowboy, ambassador, college president, missionary and a member of the Alberta legislature. But throughout all of his careers, his lifelong ambition was to explain China to the western world. His story is a rare example of the meeting of East and West in a compassionate, remarkable man.