Imagine going 29 years without knowing for sure what happened to your husband and the father of your children after he failed to return home from fishing on a B.C. lake one summer day.

His boat washed up on the shore at Francois Lake, near Burns Lake, in an odd place, and he’s presumed drowned. But without the body, there’s no closure — that 100 per cent assurance that he didn’t step on shore and somehow make his way to Mexico, no matter how remote that chance is.

Then, one day, you receive an out-of-the-blue phone call from some people from a non-profit organization that recovers drowning victims.

They’ve found him.

This is a real story from the Legacy Water Search and Recovery Society, which presented in Merritt on April 13.

The legacy is that of Brendan Wilson and Austin Kingsborough, two Langley boys who drowned in Nicola Lake in April of last year.

After an unsuccessful RCMP search, the families of Austin and Brendan were left without closure until they could find someone who could recover the bodies.

Realizing that gap in emergency services and how important recovery is to the grieving process, family members and their supporters took the next year to establish a society that will fill that gap.

It’s been a lot of work and a lot of money, and there’s still a long way to go, the society’s president told the people who attended the Merritt presentation.

They still need a purpose-built boat and a side-scan sonar, but they are the proud new owners of a remove operating vehicle, a small submersible with a camera and recovery equipment on it.

And the recovery work they’ll do is not only vital to the emotional well-being of families. Consider this: it can take up to seven years to sort out insurance and legal things after a drowning, they said.

Barry Wilson, the society’s treasurer and Brendan’s father, pointed out that when mortgage payments keep coming out and life insurance doesn’t necessarily come in, all that time can ruin a family financially — as if they haven’t lost enough.

Society members came on the invite of the local search and rescue team and delivered their good news to a small group of attendees, but had a formidable opponent for people’s time in the form of Sunday’s gorgeous weather.

Still, it’s inspiring to see how far the group has come since the tragedy last year, and that the legacy will now help other families in their darkest hours.

Shana showings a success

There is something awesome about seeing a place you feel connected with on the big screen.

In the locally-shot film Shana: The Wolf’s Music, nearly every scene of beautiful Nicola Valley vistas and the familiar faces in them made me appreciate the beauty of this area from the perspective of someone seeing it who’s not familiar with it.

Local sights-turned-movie-sets included Johnny’s on the Rez, where Shana gets her pizza fix, and the Lower Nicola powwow arbor, where Shana has some fond memories. Through the lens of the artful shots, I saw the scenes how other people may see them for the first time.

Not only was the film beautifully shot, it was a touching story brought to life by “real actors.”

This concept was totally foreign to me before this film, and judging by the audience applause after Monday’s showing, I think I am in good company when I say it proved to be an impressive technique. It is bold for a filmmaker to cast “real” people, many without acting experience at all, and trust them to carry the storyline.

The story is that of Shana, a Lower Nicola teenager whose only comfort after the death of her mother is music.

But as the “non-actors” explained in the Q and A after the film, the characters aren’t just tools for the storyline; they helped shape it.

Director Nino Jacusso encouraged the actors to let themselves into the characters, giving them an authenticity and an ease of believability.

The showings of the film were obviously a huge success, with four extra viewings added to the original three, which had sold out.

Even Sunday’s last-minute show was well-attended despite only being publicized by word of mouth, and Monday’s was close to another full house.

The curtain has closed on this production and its screenings in Merritt for now, but everyone who had a part in the making of this film, whether behind the scenes or in front of the lens, should be proud of the end result.