"The most revolutionary documentary made in Canada since John Grierson Founded the National Film Board."
— Stephen Pedersen, THE CHRONICLE HERALD

"(An) ambitious and fascinating exercise in postmodernist filmmaking."
— The Globe and Mail

"One of the great triumphs in Canadian documentary film history."
— Martin Knelman, The Toronto Star

"John Walker's Passage is a documentary film like no other; it intermingles historical re-creations with story sessions, roundtable discussions, and the actors' own reflections. By doing so, it opens up a dimension of truth missing from much of the documentary tradition since Nanook of the North; it not only admits but foregrounds its own means of production, again and again urging us to pay attention to the proverbial 'man behind the curtain.'

Dr. John Rae was one of the greatest Arctic surveyors and travelers of his era. Through terrain in which seemingly better-equipped men dispatched by the Royal Navy had met with scurvy, starvation, and death, he hunted with such skill that he often had extra food to give to Inuit he met along the way. Whether or not one believes, as does the Canadian author Ken McGoogan, that Rae's survey of the strait which bears his name should be recognized as the true discovery of the Northwest Passage, knowing his story sets the better-known tragedy of the Franklin expedition in a fuller and richer light.

The acting in the dramatic segments of this film is superb. Rick Roberts' portrayal of Rae is absolutely compelling, and in combining the actor's and the viewer's journey to Rae's character, he comes all the more vividly alive. Geraldine Alexander's Lady Jane Franklin is equally vivid, her determination evident in every word and gesture; Alistair Findlay is true to form as Sir John Richardson, and Guy Oliver-Watts does a brief but brilliant turn as Charles Dickens.

In a scene near the end of the film, Walker manages a strange and strangely compelling feat, getting Dickens's great-grandson to make a personal apology to Tagak Curley, a well-known Inuit politician, for his ancestor's harsh judgment of the Inuit people, whom he denounced as savages with 'a domesticity of blood and blubber.' It's a moment that could have happened in no other film."
— Dr. Russell Potter, Professor of English, Rhode Island College, Author, Arctic Spectacles: The Frozen North in Visual Culture, 1818-1875

"The intention of John Walker's spare, graceful film Passage seems clear enough: to tell the story of Dr. John Rae's and his discovery of the missing Franklin Arctic Expedition in 1853. Yet nothing in this daring film is straightforward. As much as it chronicles Rae's journey across the Arctic, Passage also traces a journey across time, an encounter with the Victorian world that will mesmerize viewers."
— Michael Robinson, Humanities Department, Hillyer College, University of Hartford, Author, The Coldest Crucible: Arctic Exploration and American Culture

"I found it to be an intricate and quite clever presentation, intellectually rigorous yet delightfully modern...Part debate, part historical reenactment, the story of John Rae's intrepid wanderings in the Canadian Arctic is an insightful and provocative weaving in the tattered cloth of polar history...John Walker's Passage charts a new course in an artful blend of history and perception...In a refreshing blend of formats, combining theater and contemporary discourse with period reenactments, the film facilitates a diverse set of perspectives and voices that resonate as much with the Arctic of the Victorian Age as with the Arctic Nunavut of today."
— Dr. Stephen Loring, Arctic Archaeologist and Museum Anthropologist, Arctic Studies Center, Smithsonian Institution