The Snow Walker is not Atanarjuat, but it captures the actual scenic beauty of the North and with it, the poetic truth of brotherhood in an unforgiving land.

As predicable as the annual fall of the Maple Leafs, but considerably more tragic, as traditional as the recurring scam of political patronage, but a lot more compelling, The Snow Walker is a vintage slice of Canadiana.

Constant interruptions prevent the story from building to a satisfying emotional pitch, leaving the film, like the characters, to trudge circuitously across that vast frozen tundra.

[A]voids descending into the overtly sentimental by not romanticizing a harsh land...