Meredith Kerr
Journal Staff
Based on a true story, ‘The Grizzlies’ takes place in Kugluktuk, Nunavut where drugs, alcohol, and domestic violence are endemic and the community is suffering from one of the highest teen suicide rates in the world. The plot follows Russ Sheppard, a white teacher who comes to the community on a one-year contract and introduces his class to the sport of lacrosse following the death of one of his students.
Ricky Marty-Pahtayken is an actor from Frog Lake First Nation. He plays Adam, one of the students who is drawn into lacrosse.
He said that while the film does handle tough subjects like suicide, it’s ultimately quite uplifting because of the way the youth in the story find the will to pull through and keep going.
“It really shows anything is possible,” said Marty-Pahtayken.
According to Marty-Pahtayken, the most shocking thing for him happened when he first arrived in Iqaluit by plane for filming.
“When I first arrived, it was just all white. A couple hills. And then when I saw the people finally, it was new. It was a very small town. But the people were just amazing, they were very kind. It was almost like being home, but totally different,” he said.
“Being there, and hearing people's stories, I didn’t know how much they’ve been through up north, and that was really educational for me,” said Marty-Pahtayken.
He said he thinks of ‘The Grizzlies’ as a sort of sequel to ‘Indian Horse,’ the 2017 film about a residential school survivor and hockey player.
“Indian Horse opened a lot of eyes. I’ve heard people talk in a positive way about how they didn’t know this happened. Non-indigenous weren’t aware of this dark secret of Canada. The Grizzlies is like the aftermath of residential schools, this is what the kids, what they go through that they have to put up with their parents who were sexually and physically abused in the residential schools,” said Marty-Pahtayken.
Melvin Abraham is the board chair of the Health and Wellness Society in Frog Lake, which gave some financial support to the Marty-Pahtayken while he was acting in the film, and now has booked a private screening on Good Friday, April 19, when ‘The Grizzlies’ is released.
“I’ve watched the trailer and it’s awesome. And at the end of one of the trailers, I had to chuckle a little bit because there’s humour there,” said Abraham. He said in his experience, First Nation people often turn to humour to heal.
“Somehow, we need to make sure we have a balance between our spirituality, our physical, our emotional. All these things need to be in balance. And when we read about true events or see films based on true events it makes us understand we’re not alone in a lot of these situations we find ourselves in in our lives,” said Abraham.
He said one of the things that most pleases him about being able to support Marty-Pahtayken is “these youth from our community, being in these movies they are becoming role models for other youth . . . It’s not only First Nations that are affected by the drug and alcohol addictions. If we have role models in our different nationalities, I’m hoping, we’re hopeful, that we start eliminating those addictions, we start helping,” said Abraham.
A private screening of ‘The Grizzlies’ for members of Frog Lake First Nation will take place at 10:30 a.m. on April 19 at the Grand Cinema in Cold Lake. Organizers say admission is free, and the screening is expected to resemble a “mini-film festival” with actor Ricky Marty-Pahtayken there to speak about the film.
‘The Grizzlies’ has won a number of awards at film festivals around the world already, including Best Narrative Feature at Palm Springs, Best International Feature Film in Rome, and Best Canadian Narrative Feature in Calgary.
