This is the story of the Canyon War, an untold chapter in Canadian history. Swept under the carpet for 150 years, it’s a tale of greed, violence and heroism set against the backdrop of the Fraser River gold rush of 1858.

The untold story

Imagine headless, naked corpses slowly swirling in a river’s back eddy. Burning villages, heavily armed American militias raping, murdering and pillaging defenseless Indians. Brutal reprisals as the Natives fight back. It sounds like a classic “Indian War” from the American Wild West but it happened right here, on Canada’s West Coast. Imagine how its effects reverberate through British Columbia’s society to this day.

The film brings the Canyon War to life and turns conventional history and stereotypes on their heads by revealing the true and genuine persona of the key players. Most of the American Miners were not cardboard cutout cowboys whose mantra was “the only good Indian is a dead Indian,” but far-sighted peacemakers. The British Authorities, known for their strict adherence to peace, order, and good Government did nothing while the fighting raged. And finally, the First Nations, far from simple savages, saw the bigger picture. They knew that they could either think strategically and engulf the entire Pacific Northwest into a bloody war, or solve this conflict locally.

The Fraser River served as the main artery of the war. We experience the war’s forgotten battlefields via a white water rafting journey down the wild river together with Dan Marshall (the foremost Canadian authority on the conflict) and award-winning Lytton First Nation actor and playwright Kevin Loring. Marshall’s ancestors joined the Fraser River rush in 1858 and he accompanies Loring on a journey of personal discovery as they visit strategic locations and forgotten battlefields.

Marshall and Loring’s narrative is woven in with dramatic reenactments of key scenes from the conflict. They describe how the Nlaka’pamux tried to protect themselves from the onslaught of over 40,000 gold seekers flooding into their territory, bringing these stories to life. Through them viewers learn of the heroic efforts by Chief Spintlum of Camchin to end the war and how he found an unlikely ally among the American miners in Capt. Henry Snider.

Marshall and Loring guide the viewer from the Battle of Boston Bar to the final peace treaty of Camchin as they paint a vivid picture of how close the Canyon War came to engulfing the entire Pacific Northwest, from the Rockies to Oregon, in a bloody conflagration. A war that would likely have resulted in U.S. intervention and the annexation of B.C. by the Americans.

Shot on location exactly 150 years to the month when it took place, the Canyon War tears the lid off a hidden chapter of Canadian history with an engrossing mixture of dramatic recreation, expert narration and cinema verite.