Ithaqua has been a long-term passion project for its Canadian director and writer, Casey Walker. In interviews, he has described his struggle to see his conception to the screen, including securing the funding – something that finally came from John Gore, who (as of 2023) has acquired Hammer Films. In the meantime, Walker has directed two other features – A Little Bit Zombie (2012) and Home Bodies (2026) and has produced a number of films, including Chris Nash’s 2024 break-out hit, In A Violent Nature (which we loved).
Ithaqua is set in winter in 1821 at a fur-trading post, Fort Thomas, in the Canadian wilderness. The place is inspired, Walker says, by Fort William Historical Park, a living-history museum in his home town of Thunder Bay, Ontario. Indeed, Ithaqua was filmed at Fort William, at its reconstruction of an early nineteenth-century fur trading post. It was also filmed in an unusually cold winter, and Walker has recounted the enormous challenge of filming in temperatures of minus 34 degrees Celsius to minus 55 (including a scene in which a man strips off his clothes).
