Co-Director
In an oil-scarce world, we know there are sacrifices to be made in the pursuit of energy. What no one expected was that a tiny native community, living down the river from Canada's tar sands, would reach out to the world for help, and be heard.
Director
It is easy to overlook Herschel Island – a tiny speck of land just off the Yukon coast – where the Inuvialuit hunter Nuligak once followed the great journeys of caribou, polar bears, and whales. The island lays silently on the margins of geography, entrapped in the footnotes of history, a forgotten place frozen in time. It was on Herschel Island that a young Inuvialuit boy, Nuligak (later named Bob Cockney by the missionaries) came of age-fascinated by Herschel, but equally repelled by the excess of so-called civilization. Through Nuligak’s touching yet tragic life-story expressed through his writings and echoed by his grandchildren’s poignant return to the Island-we are offered a unique view into an often troubling past and a potentially hopeful future.
Executive Producer
This film illustrates the struggles of Canadian prairies women to achieve a more just and humane society within the farm movement and at large. During the early 1900s, women on the prairies looked for ways to overcome their isolation. Out of the resulting farm women's organizations grew a group of women possessing remarkable intellectual abilities, social and cultural awareness, and advanced worldviews.
Associate Producer
Kelly is a Métis man without treaty or hunting rights, struggling to sustain his traditional life. His daughter Theresa longs for a red dress from France that she believes will give her power and strength, as the bear claw once did for her great-grandfather Muskwa. When Theresa escapes an assault and Kelly turns his back on his daughter, he realizes that he must reconnect with his culture in order to make things right. Today, the red dress is a powerful symbol recognizing over 1000 missing and murdered Indigenous women in Canada.
