Nikki: Wild Dog of the North (1961)

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Another day, another True-Life Adventure wannabe! Will these ever end? Will this one at least be tolerable? Guess we’ll just havta wait and see. Let’s take a look at Nikki: Wild Dog of the North.

And remember, SPOILERS AHEAD!

Directed by Jack Couffer and Don Haldane, the film begins in the Canadian Rockies wherein we’re introduced to a fur trader named Andre Dupas, played by Jean Coutu. He has a pup malamute named Nikki whom he takes with him on his explorations in the wilderness.

On one occasion, they come across a young bear cub named Neewa whose mother was killed. Andre ties the two together but is himself accidentally separated from them. Nikki and Neewa try to get untangled from their knot while exploring the wilderness together.

Much of the film involves them interacting with the elements as well as with other wild animals. Eventually winter is upon them and Neewa finds a cave to hibernate in until the spring.

Nikki continues on his way and comes across a crooked trapper named Jacques Lebeau played by Émile Genest and his American Indian aide, Makoki, played by Uriel Luft. Lebeau is extremely nasty and wants to use Nikki in illegal dogfighting back at his base camp, something which Makoki clearly disapproves of. Nevertheless, Lebeau takes Nikki back to his base camp and enters him in the dogfights which can get quite vicious.

Serendipitously enough, the leader at the camp is Andre who tries to stop the dogfights from happening. Andre doesn’t recognize Nikki as he’s full-grown now, but Nikki recognizes Andre and approaches him. Andre realizes that this is Nikki and is happy to be reunited with him again. Lebeau, on the other hand, is infuriated with Andre and tries to attack. Nikki steps in to defend and Lebeau ends up dead. At first, it seems that Nikki killed Lebeau, but it’s discovered that Lebeau fell on his own knife killing himself.

Makoki works with Andre now and together with Nikki, they take a trip back to the wilderness. By now, Neewa has awakened from his hibernation a full-grown bear. Nikki tries to get Neewa to come back with them, but Neewa doesn’t seem to remember Nikki much and would rather just live his life as a bear in the Rockies. Nikki accepts this and returns to Andre.

And that was Nikki: Wild Dog of the North! Honestly, it was surprisingly more interesting than I expected and kept my attention. I thought the training of the animals was good although how much was training I’m not sure. The human actors were ok; I didn’t have any major issue with them.

This was one of the better True-Life Adventure wannabes and I’m not even 100% sure why. On paper, I should hate this as much as I hate some of the others. Maybe I’m just getting numb to these films?

So, my final score for this film is 26/35 = 74.29% (C) !

The next review will be posted on April 9, 2024.