What started with a note scribbled on a napkin in the midst of the pandemic has turned into a 13-part documentary series for Vernon-raised filmmaker Len Morissette. 

Arriving to small screens across Canada Thursday, Jan. 9, Water Worlds is Canada's first-ever Indigenous underwater exploration documentary series. Produced by a B.C.-based Indie production company, the series will air on APTN with new episodes weekly. The series will air in both English and Cree and will be available to stream on APTN Lumi starting Jan. 9. 

After years of work and collaboration, Morissette's sketch of an idea for Water Worlds evolved into an inspiring series founded on the principle of two-eyed seeing, which combines traditional Indigenous knowledge with modern science, offering an exploratory view of the planet's fragile ecosystems and how to restore their balance amid the effects of climate change through an Indigenous lens. 

Morissette, a Mistawasis (Saskatchewan) band member who now lives in Grande Prairie, Alta., has a background in digital advertising but tapped into his passions later in life, and has now been a filmmaker for 13 years. It was a years-long process of discovering a calling for Morissette, who says his dyslexia had previously held him back. 

In many ways, his transition from digital advertising to filmmaking was inevitable. 

"As soon as I picked up a camera I was like 'Oh, this is what I was meant for,'" Morissette told The Morning Star. "Film to me is the only thing that ever made sense in my life, this is a skill set I have that I'm naturally gifted at.

"And it turns out that dyslexia is just a beautiful, powerful tool when it comes to storytelling and visuals.," he added.

Indeed, according to Dyslexia Support South, dyslexic people are often good problem solvers and high in creativity and empathy, with big-picture thinking, strong narrative reasoning and a knack for being observant — a set of traits any filmmaker would covet. 

Water has been an integral part of Morissette's life.

"Growing up in Vernon, we just spent all our time in the lakes," he said. "I just lived in the water my whole childhood."

At a young age, he drew inspiration from watching classic underwater series by the likes of David Attenborough.

"Watching all those underwater series I was just like, man, if I ever had the chance, I would do something like that."

Now that dream has come to the surface, and it's a timely moment for the series to arrive as environmental concerns have never been greater. 

Water Worlds takes viewers on a visually stunning an educational journey through Canada's oceans, lakes and wetlands, exploring the impacts humans are having on aquatic ecosystems that are critical to humans' survival. 

From Haida Gwaii to the Comox Valley to the largest underground freshwater cave system in Canada (found in the traditional unceded territories of the Algonquin and Anishinaabe people under the Ottawa River), viewers will get a first-hand look at the work being done across Canada by Indigenous elders working with some of the top scientists in the world — including Jill Heinerth, an acclaimed Canadian cave diver — to preserve Earth's waterways for generations to come. 

For Morissette, the series is a demonstration of reconciliation in action, as both Indigenous and non-Indigenous people worked together seamlessly to bring to light episodes that express the value of Indigenous understandings of the natural world. 

"We all worked together and it was a beautiful collaboration," Morissette said. "That's reconciliation right there."

Notably, the series is narrated by internationally acclaimed Cree-Métis actor Tantoo Cardinal, who starred in the 2023 Martin Scorsese film Killers of the Flower Moon. 

Morissette said he sent a "Hail Mary" message to Cardinal years ago to ask her to narrate the show, and she enthusiastically jumped on board. 

As the series is airing in Cree as well as English, Cardinal relearned the language in order to narrate the series in both languages, which Morissette said was an admirable effort that served as a way of preserving the language.

"It was an honour working with her," he said. "When it came to the Cree, I watched Tantoo work so hard to (relearn) her language, work at it. It was days, weeks, months just hammering it out."

Morissette, who wrote, directed and created Water Worlds, credits all of the members of his team for making the show a reality. 

"It's just a beautiful story of collaboration."