I’ve been missing my little girl lately—she’s off on her own adventures now after graduating from high school last spring. But we had some adventures in years past, and this past summer, we met on a little creek high in Idaho’s Caribou National Forest for some fishing. The two of us have always had a firm bond—she was an emergency C-section baby, and for the first four hours of her life, I held her close to my chest and kissed her forehead while her mother recovered from the harried surgery.
Together, we spent two weeks on Alaska’s Tongass National Forest a couple of years ago, and we generally found time to make a run into the mountains to chase trout or down to the river battle burly carp on the Snake. We have a fishy history.
Missing Delaney made me think of this short film by Todd Moen—it might not be be his most famous cinematographic effort, but it’s easily my favorite.
Fathers and daughters who bond over fishing will have a lifelong connection, just like the dad and daughter in this great film about British Columbia’s Spatsizi Wilderness, far away from civilization in the heart of the Canadian outback. Moen captures not only the unreal fishing, but the relationship between this pair of die-hard anglers in one of the world’s wildest places. I love this film. It makes me happy.
I hope it makes you happy, too.
— Chris Hunt