On March 24th the Canadian Studies Department hosted the premiere for the film The World As We Know it is Always Ending directed by Natalie Vaughn-Graham. The event, which took place in Trent’s Wenjack Theatre was part of the department’s ongoing celebration of their 50th anniversary and recognized student work in Canadian Studies at Trent University. The evening involved a performance by Irish Millie, speech by Mark Dickinson, the film premiere, and then finally a Q and A with Natalie Vaughn-Graham and Dickinson. 

The evening began with a performance by Irish Millie, a local fiddle player and her father. As people arrived and enjoyed their refreshments, Irish Millie enthralled the audience and welcomed them into the Canadian Studies atmosphere. The music was a wonderful way to add to the whole event and brought a level of excitement and professionalism to the evening. 

Once everyone was settled into their seats and ready for the film premiere, assistant professor of Canadian Studies, Mark Dickinson, introduced the evening and Natalie Vaughn-Graham’s filming career. Her work began as a student project and has since grown into something larger. The World As We Know it is Always Ending is her first feature film. 

The World As We Know it is Always Ending is about the history and legacy of Trent University professor emeritus John Wadland’s class called Canada: The Land. It follows the summer 2022 version of the class where the group heads to Windy Pine, a piece of property owned by the Canadian Studies Department. The film demonstrates an alternate way of learning and teaching that incorporates the land. It is a process of bringing the community together through the lens of education where the land has a voice of its own. 

As Dickinson stated in his opening speech introducing the documentary, “I had students choose sitting spots for themselves, a quiet place out of doors that they could visit a few times a week, record their observations and insights in weekly journal entries. I invited them to enter into the beginnings of an awareness of the land as a leading player in the play. To go from bird, to black-capped chickadee, tree to Eastern White Cedar, or little black speck on the snow to stone-fly.” 

The way the course is designed is to encourage students to explore how their relationship with the land changes when time is taken on the land. It is about becoming familiar with a place and finding deeper meaning in what it means to be a human who experiences the natural world. The World As We Know it is Always Ending expertly documents this through the interviews and the visuals of Windy Pines. 

Dickinson later stated, “In making friends with places, they were making friends with themselves. Because everything is connected with everything else.” The students he was able to guide to the outdoors were able to find a sense of belonging on the land that is unlike anything else. Natalie Vaughn-Graham, having taken the course in the past, demonstrated her keen eye for grasping the experience of finding a connection with the land. She artfully brings the interconnected feeling of being on the land through the Canada: The Land course to the forefront and establishes the power the course has had on shaping the department and the people who have taken part throughout the years in making it a legacy. The film was well received by the audience which noted its quality cinematography and facility in presenting the themes of the course on screen. The film was bright and intriguing, bringing the audience along for the ride into the woods without disturbing the peace about what it means to be one with the land. This was a great feat for Natalie Vaughn-Graham to fully capture the experience of the course while maintaining the integrity the Canadian Studies Department has set out to do. 

John Wadland has famously stated throughout his time at Trent University that, “The land is not merely the stage in which the human drama is enacted, the land is the leading player in the play”. This vision was maintained and shaped by Natalie’s artistic eye. She received great recognition by the end of the evening for her success. She never overshadowed Wadland’s wise words and they ran throughout the night as a key reminder that our treatment of the land has a direct correlation with our egos that assume dominance over the nonhuman world. Natalie’s film never attempted to exude this dominance, but instead, was an observing eye into how the land has been shaped as the main character; the leading force. 

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