Northern Perspectives.
Becoming a dog musher was Harry Okpik's childhood dream. But during the Dog Slaughter in the early 1960s, when government agents shot thousands of Inuit huskies across the Canadian Arctic, 11-year-old Harry saw the sky turn red and thought his dream forever destroyed.
12 years later, after traumatic residential schooling, another personal tragedy struck when he suffered a shooting accident. Three years of intense hospitalization and estrangement from his community followed. Then Harry made the harrowing decision to amputate his leg – one he believed would forever rob him of his hopes of becoming a real man, a father, a true Inuk; a decision that would lead him to recovery and back to his home, the north.
Filmed over the course of several seasons, Okpik’s Dream follows Harry as he recounts the momentous events of his life and cares for his magnificent husky dogs in preparation for the Ivakkak – a gruelling 600 km Inuit dog sled race across the Canadian Arctic.