Maurice Constantin-Weyer's novel, influenced by Jack London ,essentially depicts the upheaval which the railroad track caused in Canada, the disappearance of the cowboys ' and the trappers ' way of life ; the death of Lucie (the daughter who survives in the movie) becomes symbolic and represents the death of the prairie as they used to know it.
There's no train in Willy Rozier's adaptation which does no do the writer justice ,by long shot .An absolutely abysmal script , with an absurd Franco-German cast ...Directing is incredibly flat , giving the "adventure" side an inadequate treatment ( the death of the companion, the sacrifice of the husky) ,
with no sense of space (filming on ___location and color were rare in the French thirties, here the cinematography is amateurish ). The gist of the movie is the unfortunate love affair of the trapper (Jacques Bergerac , a French actor unknown in his native land and who essentially worked in the USA where he was featured in a good thriller "fear no more" ) and a woman of Canadian origin (Barbara Rutting ) ....
It seems the director has a change of heart ceasessly :now an adventures movie ,now a depiction of Canadian farmers (nobody but Helena Manson bothers to adopt the Quebec accent) everyday life ;now a melodrama (the wife always suffering cause hubby 's always gone hunting),now a thriller (the caribou hunt),you name it.
The novel was released in 1928,and in the film ,the screenwriters don't shrink from pure anachronism: Jean-Roger Caussimon sing two songs written by the great Felix Leclerc ("le p'tit bonheur" ,"moi, mes souliers" ).....circa 1950!!!The writer spent ten years in Canada ,between 1904 and 1914!
