About The wild goose project

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The Wild Goose was Wade Hemsworth's first song, written in the early 1950s. In it he draws upon his feeling of oneness with the great play of nature which is theatre to all beings; those who act and those who observe. A man, motionless as the rock he sits upon, watches the geese overhead rely on the wind to bring them to their next step of survival.

- Kate McGarrigle

Our production team at Penumbra Press is pleased to present a new video animation of yet another song by iconic Canadian singer/compose, Wade Hemsworth (1916-2002). Following success with “The Story of the I’m Alone” and “Remember Moose Mountain,” whose visuals were based on drawings by Peter Whalley, our animator, Allison Wolvers, started from scratch and created her own new character who feels the pull of home as autumn comes slowly to the northwoods. “The Wild Goose” is actually the first song that Wade wrote. About it, he says, 

“This song was first sparked late one autumn when I was with a small surveying group working on the north shore of Lake Superior…. My colleagues were out in the field someplace, farther afield at least. I was in the field myself. I was recording what they were doing by the minute with some surveying elevation gadgets. And the moodiness of the whole thing struck me, and I knew that we were going home soon because the winter was coming on, fast apace” (The Songs of Wade Hemsworth, p. 20).


So far, the video has been selected for showing in two film festivals—the New West Film Fest and the Toronto Independent Film Festival; it is a semi-finalist in the New York Animation Film Awards; and it is an award winner in the Toronto Independent Filmmakers Festival. Here is the trailer. We’ll be uploading the entire video in due course.


• JOHN FLOOD