Floating Giants: The Barry Prentice Story

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"Floating giants: The Barry Prentice Story" tells the story of Dr. Barry Prentice and his relentless pursuit of meaningful government and public attention to the inadequate state of transportation to Northern Canadian Communities, and an available solution - airships. Dr. Prentice, a Transportation Economist and tenured Supply Chain Professor at the University of Manitoba, has written several research papers and presented to industry and Canadian government officials about the feasibility of airship technology - receiving a great deal of interest and ridicule - but virtually no action. The film captures Dr. Prentice presenting and arguing his case in several different settings - to a general audience in Winnipeg at a public lecture featuring guest speaker Judy Klassen, Manitoba MLA for Keewatinook; to the remote community of Moosonee, Ontario Mayor Wayne Taipale; on an ice road tour with Billy Henry, Safety Coordinator of Northern Ontario's Kimesskanemenow Ice Road; at the Midland, Ontario home of his airship business collaborator Dale George; with his brothers in his hometown of Port Perry, Ontario; at his airship hangar in Winnipeg, Manitoba, with his ardent supporter and wife Mary Prentice at their home in Winnipeg, and with his University students during an annual lecture dedicated to the airship solution. The film intersperses these scenes of his pursuit with archival news articles and editorials capturing Dr. Prentice successes and failures as well as that of the Hindenburg tragedy and Canadian governments Deputy Minister of Transport's position on the remote community transportation crisis and preposterous talk of airships. Dr. Prentice maintains an admirable sense of humour, humility and inevitable optimism throughout this pursuit and in spite of the lack of enthusiasm outside of his immediate circle, he continuously reinvents his tactics to try and somehow bring airships back to the future.