The Treasure of Newfoundland

Nature & Wildlife 1 x 50' 2025 4K

Newfoundland is a land of extremes. It’s America's most easterly island, as large as Iceland, bordering the world's largest estuary and a mecca of world fishing history. Its name is renowned, but Newfoundland remains a little-known, even mysterious territory, protected by its inhospitable climate and frequently battered by storms.

Its coasts, sculpted by the monumental glaciers of the last ice age, and its large southern Grand Banks at the crossroads of two major ocean currents, form the most important fishing zone in the world. This place is also the site of one of the largest annual gatherings on the planet.

Every summer, responding to the vital drive to reproduce, billions of capelins surge toward the coast, with all the predators in the food chain following in their wake.

For more than ten years, these turbulent waters dotted with icebergs have been the playground of the wildlife filmmaker Didier Noirot, who spends part of each year in Newfoundland, and pours all his passion into unveiling nature’s secrets in these wild seas. His cameras capture in 8K images of a feeding frenzy in which capelin are caught between the aerial attacks of thousands of diving birds and the underwater assaults of humpback whales with garrisons of cod as reinforcements. Didier's daring dives reveal these cetaceans at full speed, their mouths gaping at the sand. 

Spawning grounds offer full-scale drama no matter where you look. Hundreds of plaice scour the bottom, filling up on the freshly laid capelin eggs. Scavenging sea urchins and anemones boldly shred dead capelins in the frenzy. 

Humans also take their share of the spoils. Industrial fishing is currently depleting the resource in these waters, while an old fisherman on shore casts his net. He reminds us how plentiful capelin were when he was a child. The capelin population is a mere tenth of what it used to be fifty years ago, which means it’s now in serious danger.

Didier invites us to witness Newfoundland’s great oceanic marvels – a reminder of the responsibility that humankind bears for the future of life on Earth. The filmmaker is a daily witness to the upheavals in this underwater world. But as a naturalist in constant search of both the unknown and the novel, he revels in bringing to light the mysteries of sea life that rekindle our sense of wonder.

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