The Shoot

• Camera: IMAX® 15/70
• Locations: Canada: Northern Quebec (Nunavik) and Labrador, between the 53rd and 63rd parallels
• Sweden: Saami Territory, north of the Arctic Circle
• First shoot: October 1998
• Last shoot: September 1999
• Total length of shoot: 4 months
• Members of GREAT NORTH shooting crew: 8 to 20
• Number of hours of daylight in Quebec's Great North in the winter: between 5 and 8 (depending on the latitude)
• Number of hours of daylight in Quebec's Great North in the summer: between 20 and 22 (depending on the latitude)
• Temperature range during the shooting of GREAT NORTH: - 22°F to 68°F (- 30°C to 20°C)
• Number of feet of ice the mussel-gathering sequence was shot underneath: 10 (3 meters)

• Number of wild caribou in Northern Quebec and Labrador: over one million
• Distribution: George River herd: 800,000 caribou
• Leaf River herd: 250,000 caribou
• Size of the herd during the 1960s: 50,000
• Size of the herd in 1954: fewer than 10,000
• Area over which the George River herd ranges: 339,162 square miles (878,430 sq.km)
• Human population in the same area: 10,000
• Number of Saami reindeer herders included in the Swedish population of 9,000,000: 20,000

• Number of planes chartered by the production: 27
• Types of aircraft: Single Otter; Twin Otter; Navajo; 748; Dash 8; Cessna Caravan
• Number of helicopters: 8
• Types of helicopters: Astar B2; Astar D; Astar BA; Astar Dauphin
• Hours spent flying in helicopters during the shoot: 300 hours
• Amount of fuel flown in for the helicopters: 300 45-gallon barrels, brought in by snowmobile, boat and bush plane
• Number of snowmobiles rented by the crew in the village of Kangiqsujuaq ("Wakeham Bay", Northern Quebec): 12
• Number of qamoutik - Inuit sleds that can be attached to snowmobiles, including the one specially modified to carry a generator and insulation to keep the camera warm: 20
• Average speed on the modified qamoutik sled: 9 miles per hour (15 km)
• Number of days required to deliver the 65 mm film stock from the winter shoot in Kangiqsujuaq (Wakeham Bay, Quebec) to the Imagica lab in Tokyo (Kangiqsujuaq - Kuujjuaq - Montreal - Tokyo): 7

• Igloo / Tent / Outfitters' Camp / Sod hut (Sweden) / Ice Hotel (Sweden) / Co-op Hotel (Nunavik)/ Helicopter / Research Camp / Quebec Government Lodging / Retirement Home

• 500 packets and more during the fall 1998 shoot (an average of 50 packets of freeze-dried food per person for 12 days). To avoid a mutiny on location, fresh food was flown by helicopter.

• Weight of equipment brought in by cargo planes (the equivalent of a 35-seat passenger plane) to Kangiqsujuaq and Puvirnituk during the winter shoot: 5 tons. The trip to get there took 4 days.
• Weight of the IMAX® camera (loaded): approximately 100 pounds (45 kg)
• Length of 65-mm film stock shot for the whole film: 217,000 feet (66,000 meters)
• Number of feet of film stock in final movie: 14,000 (4,265 meters)
• Weight of this amount of large format film: 2170 pounds (1 ton)
• Amount of film shot in total: 651 Minutes
• Number of film magazines used: 217
• Duration of each 65-mm film magazine: 3 minutes
• Final running time of GREAT NORTH: 40 minutes

• Sound recordist, Leon Johnson, found himself being pursued by a black bear for two hours on one expedition to Labrador, Northern Canada. Later on, while looking for an opportunity to record the sound of caribou in motion, he got what he was looking for as he was suddenly swamped by a moving herd of 10,000 caribou. Leon truly experienced some moving situations!
• The production's helicopter was commandeered twice to respond to Search and Rescue calls around Kuujjuaq, in Northern Quebec. Such calls can come at any time in the North. Fortunately, local help is always near, be it a film crew or another aircraft.
• The production photographed several northern archeological sites from the air, providing archeologists with important aerial photos of some sites used many centuries ago.
• Northern Sweden where vegetables are rare, the crew members found themselves eating reindeer prepared in various ways: dried, smoked, baked, boiled, and even made into pastry.
• Chimo, a young muskox of the Saint-Félicien "Wild" Zoo and who was quickly nicknamed "Crazy Kuujjuaq", chased some members of the production team in June 1999. They immediately exchanged their bright red 4x4 pickup truck for a green one!
• To film Norway's largest glacier, the production team had to land on the Swedish side of the border because they had no permit to land the helicopter in Norway. They then walked half a mile to the glacier from the border, carrying 300 pounds (140 kilograms) of equipment.
• On a location-scouting trip in Sweden in 1999, co-director/producer Martin J. Dignard braved the cold and stayed at Jukkasjärvi's famous Ice Hotel. The average temperature inside was 18°F (-8°C). What was the body temperature after a glass of Absolut Vodka at the Ice Bar…?

GREAT NORTH facilitated a two-year scientific research project headed by biologist Serge Couturier, at the the Saint-Félicien "Wild" Zoo, with the collaboration of Laval University and Société de la Faune et des Parcs du Québec (Quebec's Wildlife and Parks Department).

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