Onthe
story & photos by Hap Wilson
Setwith
007
A Canadian wilderness guide reflects on his role as canoe con- sultant to Hollywood
“It’s, it’s too Hollywood, Mr. Attenborough,” I groaned uneasily. Attenborough smiled his elfin smile. “Oh, we can’t have that, can we!” he exclaimed. That’s when the co-director jumped on me—how dare you speak like that to a Hollywood demi-god. Kirk and I stuck to our familiar ground, explaining that you could make the characters more authentic by removing some of the “fluff” collected in the script, and still retain the cheesy love theme—we didn’t say “cheesy” but we wanted to.
r. Wilson, this is not a documen- tary…it’s a Hollywood love story!” So I was informed by Diane Hawkins, co-director and friend of Richard Attenborough. Kirk Wipper, founder of the Canadian Canoe Museum, and I were asked to critique the script for the 1998 flick Grey Owl, starring none other than Pierce Brosnan, a.k.a. 007, and were flown to Montreal in March just prior to the actual filming. I sat across from movie mogul Attenborough in a makeshift boardroom, thumbing through the script where I had highlighted at least 35 faux pas, from rampaging black bears in midwinter to 007/Grey Owl vaulting his 16-foot, cedar-and- canvas canoe over a 20-foot waterfall.
“M
I should have known. Jake Eberts produced the movie. Eberts, of Dances with Wolves and A River Runs Through It fame, has a penchant for the hyperbole. Remember the scene in A River Runs Through It when Brad Pitt and friends pilot a rowboat over a waterfall that rivals Niagara in height? In the film about the Canadian author/trapper/womanizer Archie Grey Owl Belaney, Eberts wanted Owl to open with a daring plunge over a precipitous chute, after which he’d cruise to shore—Pierce Brosnan would now step in as they dragged for the double’s body—and step out of the canoe shaking back his dripping locks as if he’d just finished a commute to work. I explained to the film crew that the likes of Grey Owl might at least accomplish a wily class II in an open cedar boat. Hums and haws. I then came up with a design for a stunt boat complete with flotation bags that looked like canvas packs,
“The name is
Owl...Grey Owl.”
10
www.canoeroots.ca
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