The Last of the Lookouts

DocumentaryShort

Year2026

Duration1h

Watch Now

6.0

High atop Sinkut Mountain in northern British Columbia, Bart Vanderlinde begins each summer's day the way he has for the past nine years: scanning the forest for smoke. He's among the last lookout people in the province. Where three hundred lookouts once formed an interconnected network across the region, Bart now often keeps watch alone. The Last of the Lookouts is an intimate portrait of a man and a profession facing obsolescence. Through the rhythms of Bart's daily routine: morning weather readings, daily check-ins, solitary meals, household chores, and countless scans of the horizon, the film gives insight into the craft of fire detection while capturing the quiet solitude of a life lived in observation.