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The New Boys

1974 27 min
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This short documentary takes us to St. John's Cathedral Boys' School, at Selkirk, Manitoba, one of the most demanding outdoor schools in North America. As the school can’t accommodate every student wishing to enroll, boys of 13 to 15 years old are put through an initiation tougher than they have ever faced. They paddle canoes through some 500 kilometers of wilderness in 2 weeks, portaging and camping all the way, thereby learning vital outdoor lore, cooperation and self-confidence. The school opened in 1962 on the former Dynevor Indian Hospital, which was operated by the Anglican Church from 1896-1957. In the …

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The New Boys
  • West
    West
    1973 12 films
    This is the Canadian West that the traveller seldom sees, each film an intimate look at some facet of life of the three Prairie provinces. From the west, the east, the NFB and independent filmmakers, the films in this series show Canadians in many walks of life--the whole colorful mosaic that spreads from the plains of Manitoba and Saskatchewan to the towering peaks of Alberta's mountains.

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This short documentary takes us to St. John's Cathedral Boys' School, at Selkirk, Manitoba, one of the most demanding outdoor schools in North America. As the school can’t accommodate every student wishing to enroll, boys of 13 to 15 years old are put through an initiation tougher than they have ever faced. They paddle canoes through some 500 kilometers of wilderness in 2 weeks, portaging and camping all the way, thereby learning vital outdoor lore, cooperation and self-confidence.


The school opened in 1962 on the former Dynevor Indian Hospital, which was operated by the Anglican Church from 1896-1957. In the decades following the release of this film the school was the subject of multiple lawsuits pertaining to sexual assaults that occurred there and even student deaths due to its arduous outdoor activities.

  • director
    John N. Smith
  • producer
    John N. Smith
  • writer
    John N. Smith
  • photography
    Paul Van der Linden
  • sound
    Hans Oomes
  • editing
    Marrin Canell
  • sound editing
    Bill Graziadei

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The New Boys
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Home licence (worldwide); Classroom licence (Canada only)

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The institutional price includes the rights to screen this film in institutional settings and in free public screenings.