With horses loaded heavy with supplies, three young men abandoned the comforts of home and headed deep into the woods looking for adventure.
The friendships they forged and the shared experiences have remained strong over five decades, and they’ve helped mould who they are today.
“It was the best thing we did in our lives,” said Ernest Laviolette of the two-month camping trip he took with Eugene Foisy and Charlie Foisy in the Peters Lake area, north of Cherryville, in the 1960s.
For Laviolette, it was also an outlet for his budding interest in cinema. He packed along a 16-millimetre camera and shot what became The Call of the Monashee.
“It was quite successful at the time,” said Laviolette of the film that toured across Western Canada and was shown nationally on TV.
It was the winner of 1968’s Canadian Amateur Film Award.
Fast-forward to 2011, and The Call of the Monashee has been released on DVD and Laviolette will be signing copies at the Greater Vernon Museum Saturday from 1 p.m. to 4 p.m.
“Who would think that 50 years later, the film would make a comeback,” he said.
“People have been lining up to get them and B.C. Parks is interested. They’ve taken a couple of copies for their archives.”
Living in Cherryville, the Monashees were an obvious backdrop for a movie. The cast of characters would include deer, moose, birds, goats and marmots, as well as Laviolette and the Foisys.
“Eugene and I were out every weekend and back into the hills,” said Laviolette, who was 28 in 1960.
“I went out with the camera and I had never seen anything like it. I took picture after picture.”
Eugene Foisy was more than willing to lead Laviolette’s expedition, but he never contemplated that the end result would be drawing interest years later.
“It was just a reason to go,” said Foisy, whose focus was hunting and fishing.
He was 22 years old at the time, and the film highlights his culinary skills — whipping up a batch of pancakes, turning wild berries into jam or frying up freshly caught rainbow trout.
Eugene Foisy recently sat down with his grandchildren to watch the DVD.
“I realized how much I’d aged but my passion for the outdoors hasn’t changed. I still go out every fall,” he said.
The technology of the day often made filming a challenge.
“I’d see a deer, get off my horse, set up the tripod and check the light meter. I was surprised if the deer hadn’t taken off by then,” said Laviolette.
Once back home, Laviolette turned his basement into a studio and he began editing the film and writing a script. It was decided he wouldn’t do the narration.
“My voice didn’t carry that much. It sounded more like I was reading,” he said.
He enlisted Dave Sparrow, an announcer at CHBC TV, and soon dialogue helped add context to the vibrant images.
Filming occurred just before the area became Monashee Provincial Park in 1962.
“It’s a wonderful historical record,” said Ron Candy, Greater Vernon Museum curator. “He’s captured something that you can’t recapture. There was only a tiny window to shoot and it’s gone.”
The Call of the Monashee is being sold at the Greater Vernon Museum for $20 as a fundraiser for the museum.