Morning on the Lièvre
Morning on the Lièvre is a 13-minute Canadian short film released in June 1961. It was directed by David Bairstow for the National Film Board of Canada and shows two men canoeing on the Lièvre River near Notre-Dame-de-la-Salette, Quebec.
The film features five Archibald Lampman poems read by George Whalley: Solitude, After Mist, Ambition, A Dawn on the Lièvre, and Morning on the Lièvre. The poems describe the forest and chart a path from dawn to full day, with the poem Ambition at the end expressing Lampman’s choice to reject modern life and stay in nature.
Lampman’s friendship with Duncan Campbell Scott inspired the project; Scott introduced Lampman to camping and nature, and Lampman inspired Scott to write poetry.
Because of poor weather and spoiled footage, Bairstow shot the film over two seasons, opting for autumn scenes rather than spring. He wanted a recurring musical motif and commissioned Eldon Rathburn to compose it. Assistant director Stephen Greenlees suggested adding staged footage of rapids to keep things lively. The visuals emphasize leaf colors, echoing the landscape style of the Group of Seven and recalling paintings such as A. Y. Jackson’s The Red Maple, J. E. H. MacDonald’s Falls, Montreal River, and Tom Thomson’s In the Northland.
Adapting Morning on the Lièvre into film marked a significant departure for the National Film Board of Canada’s literary adaptations, but the poem was familiar to students and fit the Board’s goal of creating educational, visually artistic, and experimental films.
This page was last edited on 2 February 2026, at 19:26 (CET).