Cruising north (bird islands)

Filmed during the Finley-Church Expedition to the Northland, 1926. This film was taken during the Finley-Church Expedition to the Northland in 1926. It opens on Campbell Church's yacht, the Westward, with footage of the cook baking bread, the staff dining, and shots of the crew. Later, small skiffs are shown transporting the expedition party to land. The camera follows the party as they climb ragged cliffs to reach the avian inhabitants. Rhinoceros auklets are taken from their nests to be filmed. Footage is taken of the common puffin and its young. Most of the birds shown are murres: their roosting shelves and pyriform eggs are examined, including fine close-ups of an egg hatching. The murre egg is laid on the open rock and, when disturbed, its pyriform shape causes it to roll in a small circle around its pointed end rather than off the rock into the sea below. The salmon canning industry is the focus of the last sequence of the film. A cannery is shown, along with the capture of thousands of salmon in net traps. Salmon are shown on their rigorous journey upstream to fresh water habitats, where they will spawn.