The New Boys

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.