A feature-length documentary focusing on efforts to revive Dene culture through a moose-skin boat trip along the Nahanni River will be shown on the CBC documentary channel on Sunday Aug. 9 at 9 p.m.
The film, which debuted at the Yellowknife International Film Festival last November, centres around 12 Dene people from across the NWT who constructed a moose-skin boat and took it on a two-week, 500-km journey down the Nahanni River in 2018.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=93&v=1vYCBXX3hD4&feature=emb_logo
The process was and is important because building moose-skin boats has not been a common practice among Northern Dene for well over a century. The project offered participants a spiritual reconnection to culture and traditions lost to colonialism.
RELATED COVERAGE: One month at the Nahanni
Filming took place June 7-July 14, 2018, by director Geoff Bowie of Toronto-based 90th Parallel Productions. The group put together the boat under the direction of Sahtu Dene elders at Bunny Bar in the Nahanni National Park Reserve and travelled over Victoria Falls to Nahanni Butte and then on to the final destination of Fort Simpson.
photo by John Bingham
John Sabourin, a longtime sculptor and painter who is originally from Fort Simpson, was one participant. He said the trip will be ingrained in his memory for many years to come.
"I had gotten a call from Geoff because they were looking for an artist to take pictures and to do sketching of the process and I said absolutely yes," Sabourin recalled, adding he had always wanted to be part of the construction of a new mooseskin boat after first seeing the one on display at the Prince of Wales Heritage Centre many years ago.
Sabourin said he ended up having to provide some labour help in the actual construction of the boat that included harvesting, cutting and preparing the trees for the vessel's frame.
The group also had to prepare about 12 moose hides in a proper way for the boat's outer shell.
Sabourin found the experience deeply meaningful.
"I took away from it a sense of historical value like where and how our people had travelled this way on a regular basis in the spring," he said. "Being involved was a beautiful experience. I was really proud to be on that boat.
"I hope (viewers) will have some idea that it was a tough life here in the North. It is beautiful country and we are a kind people and we like to share."
Bowie said he hopes Canadian viewers are left with a better understanding of Indigenous life and experience in the North.
"I'm hoping people will take away from it a greater sense of respect and knowledge about the Dene and who they are and their sense of humour, resilience, wisdom, spiritual beliefs and how much sense they make," he said. "Even if you don't believe in it, it is good to do things like feed the river with tobacco or feed the fire with food and think about one's own ancestors and how you could be connected to them in a way that science can surely not explain. Honour the land and places you are at and people you are with. It is a good thing for human beings to do. I think I learned that and I have a greater interest and respect in Dene and their ceremonies."
Pipeline opponents of yesteryear
Bowie said the film was inspired by the legacy of Northern Dene leaders preventing the Mackenzie Valley pipeline construction in the late '70s during the Berger Inquiry.
In 2005, when Justice Thomas Berger visited the North again at the Dehcho Dene assembly, then Grand Chief Herb Norwegian shared stories about Dene ancestors living around the headwaters of various rivers draining into Mackenzie, including the Nahanni. At the time, Norwegian spoke of how the Dehcho Dene would build big moose-skin boats in the springtime to go down rivers to the Mackenzie and his interest in doing a project like that again, if only to build morale among today's Dene.
"I had brought up the idea because it had all of the vision – oral and cultural and spiritual elements –it was labour intensive and had these different angles that might work as a good documentary," Norwegian said. "It was what journalist would want to cover."
About a decade passed when Bowie was able to put together a proposal that could work. In 2018, with Norwegian's help, he got together a group of Dene with various backgrounds, ages and genders to participate in the film project.
photo by John Bingham
Bowie said Norwegian had always been a main consultant in the process, including in putting the group together.
The film experience didn't end up as straightforward as expected. During the trip, some of the hides proved problematic.
"We thought we had great hides but when Mountain Dene saw them, they had their doubts as time went on, and we had to get more hides," Bowie said. "So the major twist in the story is when the one hide was found full of holes and when we had to face the situation that might have to end the trip just below the Virginia Falls.
"We really didn't know what would happen."
photo by John Bingham
Lory-Ann Bertrand, a participant from Nahanni Butte, said she had been involved with on-the-land programs before but the Nahanni trip was much different because of intensity of the river.
Like other excursions she has taken, this one allowed her to connect with Elders and gain traditional knowledge, however she admitted that learning about moose-skin boat construction was something different.
"All Elders that I have come across are very unique in the way they teach you and often it is the same thing but different way," she said. "The boat construction was very, very unique ... and building (a) moose-skin boat and the fact that it has been passed down from generation to generation, it was just an amazing event."
