The Last of the River People

In the City of Richmond, British Columbia, a tiny village on stilts clings to the bank of the south arm of the Fraser River. Settled more than a hundred years ago by Finnish fishermen, Finn Slough's residents now are mostly artists and eccentrics who choose to live along a narrow strip of water between Lulu Island on which Richmond is built, and a tiny island in the Fraser. Each has a story to tell of the struggle to maintain a way of life: the fisherman who struggles with ever-diminishing salmon catches, the sculptor and painter unable to make a living from his art, and the two rivermen who earn their livings from the water and boats. And through their daily lives, the Fraser River flows on, and the tides come and go, as the natural life of the river and the wildlife who make it home provide a backdrop to the human lives lived at Finn Slough, and a counterpoint to the encroaching urbanization. The film is a meditation on life lived in the tidal zone.