A few years ago, it was a pitch made at an industry event hosted by the Available Light Film Festival. This year, it will be making its world premiere there.
Northlore is a film by Teslin-based Melaina Sheldon and Whitehorse-based David Hamelin. The documentary focuses on five Yukoners sitting around a campfire, telling stories and sharing lore. Northlore is a Fireside Films and National Film Board Of Canada co-production, in association with CBC and Northwestel Community TV.
“All of our storytellers have this huge element of bravery and adventure in the stories that they've shared with us, kind of that bold step out into the Yukon, right?” said Sheldon.
The idea of Northlore was born when Hamelin’s company made a short movie, entitled The Provider, profiling Gary Sidney Johnson’s first moose hunt as a young man.
“What was magical about Gary's story was that he went out, set out to go on this moose hunt. But in the midst of it, he was connecting with other animals and nature and his ancestors,” said Sheldon.
“From that original story, we knew that there were other Yukoners who had similar kind of experiences,” said Sheldon.
The filmmakers weren’t necessarily looking for more moose hunt stories, but rather more tales about the magic of the North, she said.
“I think it's something inherent to all Yukoners, when you live here, is that you're going to have an experience, you're going to go out to the bush and you're going to be out there, and there's going to be magic that happens. I think all of us have one of these stories, and it was just our journey to search, to find, to look for and seek out the other Yukoners whose stories kind of fell in a similar vein.”
They put a call out, seeking Yukoners to come forth and tell their stories to be part of the documentary, said Hamelin.
Most of the storytellers are Indigenous to the Yukon, said Sheldon. The stories all focus on human interaction with nature - climbing Mount Logan, hunting moose in the bush, and being a small child at the family camp forty kilometres outside Old Crow.
The project encountered its fair share of challanges, said Hamelin. Most of the production took place during 2020 and 2021, when COVID-19 lockdowns were happening across the territory and the country. The director duties also changed hands before eventually falling onto the shoulders of Hamelin and Sheldon.
“It even hindered some of our filming opportunities. We were supposed to go up to Old Crow, but there was a new outbreak, and so there's a lockdown,” said Hamelin.
“I feel it made sense for a film like Northlore, which is all about learning to adapt to these extreme situations, outside,” he said.
Northlore is a call to reconnect with the land, said Hamelin.
“I feel there is like a disillusionment with all this social media and all this advancement in technology and AI, and it's just starting to get a little crazy. And so people are looking for more simplistic, more naturalistic ways of going about their life,” he said.
The film is about trying to reconnect with humanity’s roots in the natural world, said Hamelin, and find balance within nature. Immersing oneself in the natural world can really bring about a new experience within, he said.
“Northlore was determined to be made, with or without us,” said Sheldon, laughing. “These stories were determined to be out in the world.”
Contact Talar Stockton at talar.stockton@yukon-news.com
