Extraordinary true stories of survival on the land fill Northlore with 'magic of the Yukon'

Anastasia Chipelski · CBC News

· Posted: Mar 14, 2025 6:00 AM EDT | Last Updated: 10 minutes ago

Five storytellers beryllium astir a campfire, and arsenic their stories weave unneurotic they grow, done animation, into lore.

"I deliberation we were trying to grasp a spot that magic of the Yukon, the spell of the Yukon," said Melaina Sheldon, a Tlingit actor and writer who, alongside David Hamelin, co-created and co-produced Northlore, the National Film Board, Northwestel and CBC Absolutely Canadian documentary.

"It's a spot elusive, what we've done, due to the fact that it's not paranormal," said Sheldon, adding it's "somewhere successful between. We pinned down arsenic magical realism."

The spark for the 54-minute movie was a live-action and animated abbreviated shown astatine the 2020 Available Light Film Festival: The Provider told the communicative of Gary Sidney Johnson's archetypal moose hunt arsenic an adult.

"It was benignant of similar the aviator for Northlore," said Johnson, an entertainer and taste ambassador successful Carcross, Yukon. 

The stories of Northlore involve meetings with animals and endurance experiences: An unexpected goose sighting portion skiing a glacier, a wolf trailing a stream journey, a life-or-death unwellness linked to a beaver, and a gathering with a radical of rams that bullets won't touch. 

Sheldon says the animation, created with Winnipeg-based Dene creator Casey Koyczam and his team, allowed the movie to recreate parts of the storytellers' pasts without having to prosecute actors, particularly for the moose oregon eagle. 

Melissa Matheson Frost's communicative goes backmost to her puerility astatine her family's camp, erstwhile she got earnestly ill, thousands of kilometres from immoderate hospital. Her grandmother, Alice Frost, drew connected accepted cognition to assistance her heal.

"To spot her grandma Alice Frost successful animation — she's passed on, but she's like, for me, a Yukon superhero," said Sheldon. "That's what it feels similar to spot young Dennis [Shorty, one of 5 storytellers successful Northlore], to spot Gary [Johnson]. These are heroes wrong the territory."

The movie came afloat ellipse for its premiere astatine the Available Light Film Festival successful Whitehorse connected Feb. 7, but heroes inactive sometimes get tense earlier the large day.

When helium archetypal shared his story, Johnson was disquieted hunters with much accepted cognition mightiness look down connected him, "but if thing it's had the other effect," helium said.

Men convey him for his story, and stock their worries: 'I went hunting 1 oregon 2 times and I'm embarrassed astir letting radical cognize I've lone went a fewer times,' oregon things similar that."

For Frost, who's from the Vuntun Gwichin First Nation and grew up successful the Yukon, the movie fits however oral past keepers stock their knowledge. 

"We don't archer radical this is however you bash things. You archer them a story, and … it encourages them to inquire questions, it encourages them to probe and wonder, and that's the benignant of magic successful it, is the empowerment."

"The First Nations of this onshore person a batch of stories and legend," Sheldon added. "This is however legends travel to be, is you marque your ain fable … and these stories turn successful their epicness and successful their telling."

Sheldon hopes Northlore inspires others to marque and stock their ain stories:

"Be brave, similar each of our storytellers are brave, and spell retired to the land, and beryllium acceptable to make your ain story, your ain lore, your ain adventure." 

Northlore streams escaped on CBC Gem and connected the NFB website.