Cowboys and Indians, gold-miners and pioneers, skyscraper cities and ghost towns, snow-capped mountains and rich valleys: this is 'the last frontier.' In May the Royal Family joined British Columbia's celebrations commemorating the country's first hundred years as the sixth province of Canada.

But despite progress and modern cities, today much of the country is still as the pioneers found it. One can fly from Vancouver's whirling social life and join a packhorse trip through the mountains and valleys where wild life still roams free and where each season brings a new blaze of colour.

The Ganges is the river of India. It rises in an ice cave in the Himalayas, held sacred by the Hindus. It is like being born in a monastery. It dies in the Indian Ocean, after a journey of 1,540 miles. Over the years it has become not only a river but a way of life.'
Film-maker Yavar Abbas returns after years in the West to the country of his birth, and follows the Ganges from its source to the sea.