Many Nunavummiut may know Anna Lambe from her role on “The Grizzlies”, among others, as well as her advocacy work for the Indigenous community.
Her experience is why she was approached by the creators of “Warrior Up”- a new documentary series by Picture This Productions premiering on streaming service APTN Lumi starting May 4th, 2024, as well as on APTN’s legacy TV channel starting May 11th, 2024.
Nunavut News spoke with Iqalummiuq Lambe about her experience co-hosting the series profiling “Indigenous teens across Turtle Island who are passionately transforming their communities, their lands and their own lives for the better.”
Personal connections across Indigenous groups and communities
The first season of “Warrior Up” has Lambe interacting with three different Indigenous communities on different themes: Neveah Pine of Garden River First Nation, Ontario, who is hosting a day of school activities in Sault-Ste-Marie, Ont., on Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls (MMIWG); assisting designer Kyrstin Dumont of Ottawa in putting on an Indigenous fashion show at Algonquin College; and following the emotional journey of an all-female cyclist team from Oklahoma retracing the Cherokee Trail of Tears.
With the latter, Lambe said she feels a personal connection to the forced relocation of the Cherokee under the American Indian Removal Act of 1830 and her own grandparents, who underwent a similar forced relocation of Inuit by the Canadian government from northern Quebec to Grise Fiord in the 1950s as “human flagpoles” to establish sovereignty in the northern islands of Nunavut during the Cold War.
“Essentially what happened is they were lied to by the Canadian government … 'Hop on this this boat, and we’ll lead you to this incredible new life', and when they arrived, they were essentially abandoned in some of the most extreme conditions on Earth, and they were forced to establish a [new] life there. There was a lot of starvation, there was a lot of hopelessness and despair, and wishing to go back. And so the impacts of the relocation are still something I see a lot of within my family, and the amount of trauma that happened within that … It’s left a permanent mark on so many families and communities.”
“Doing the Cherokee ride was a massive learning experience,” recalls Lambe. “As I followed the girls [recreating the route of the Trail of Tears] and chatted with them, it drew a lot of parallels about what happened with High Arctic relocation. [It was] a tool of colonialism of taking people away and youths away from our own identities, which is so tied to the land that we come from. So much of the Inuit experience was similar. Just barely surviving, and then flourishing as a people later on. But it damaged [people] mentally, emotionally, and in so many different ways, including inter-generational trauma that’s still going on to this day … It was a great experience and amazing to connect with the girls in that episode.”
Red Dress Day in Sault-Ste-Marie
“The first episode episode I shot with warrior up was with Neveah [Pine]. That one hit me in a very personal place,” says Lambe. The episode centres around Pine putting on a remembrance ceremony for May 5 or “Red Dress Day” for MMIWG at her school and in Sault-Ste-Marie at large. A close friend of Lambe’s had herself been murdered on a May 3rd, so both the proximity of the dates and the meaning of the ceremony is one very close to her heart.
“It was very powerful, because I had felt very vulnerable, even though I was older, and I was hosting the episode, it felt like Neveah was making space for me as an Indigenous youth to be vulnerable and to be open, and it was a beautiful experience of sharing and being seen, and being cared for by the younger generations. I feel like for so many Indigenous peoples, we hold in such high reverence our youth and our elders … Our youth are so new to this world that they see the potential for change, and hold us this way as well. So to be seen in this way and held by Neveah was very beautiful, and something I hold very near and dear to my heart. And so that episode holds a very special place in my life, and what I learned and took away from it.”
It was so meaningful and impactful for both Pine and Lambe that at the end of the episode, the two make a traditional exchange of gifts: Lambe gifts Pine with the red earrings she had made for the occasion in the Inuit style, and Pine gives her the bracelet she had made for the occasion, that Lambe always keeps with her when she travels along with other meaningful items such as her grandmother’s scarf.
Indigenous fashion-forward
Another personal connection Lambe made, and indeed already had, was in filming the Ottawa (Lambe’s current location and second home) episode at Algonquin College.
“The fashion show show episode was shot with Krystin Dumont who’s a friend of mine. It was a really beautiful episode in that it shows Indigenous youth, despite whatever barriers they may experience in their life and all the challenges that come in the process that make something happen, how to persevere, how to be adaptive … Doing what you can with what you have. Kirsten has been inspiring me for years, and she’s always working on or doing something, and it’s always community centred or community oriented. It was a really great experience in how to lead with your heart and how to lead with your community first.”
The “Warrior Up” series is due to start airing at the beginning of May on APTN, and Lambe is positive about her experience making it and its impact on representing the optimism, love, and grace of Indigenous youth representation. “I’m very proud with the experience and what we produced with season one, and what we got to share. I’m excited and hope Warrior Up has more of a future. I think it’s something that Indigenous youth deserve to see themselves represented in, inspired, and feel hopeful [from], but as of right now I’m not sure what comes next.”