[1][2] It recounts the Tsimshian legend of how the loon received the distinctive band of white markings on its neck.
The variant of the tale used by Crawley, and with the advice of ethnographer Marius Barbeau, was recorded during the early 1930s in British Columbia by National Museum of Canada anthropologist Douglas Leechman.
[3] The film centers around Kelora, a blind Tsimshian medicine man who lived in the British Columbia village of Shalus and spent his time at the river, with the Loon, who he believed was his father.
[2] The film is narrated by George Gorman and François Bertrand, and performed by actors in traditional West Coast First Nations masks in front of a backdrop of brightly coloured oil paintings.
It was made for the National Film Board of Canada (NFB), which rejected it,[5] so Crawley sold the Canadian rights for $5,000.