Etthén Heldeli: Caribou Eaters nominated for Canadian Screen Award
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A documentary filmed partly in northern Saskatchewan depicting the way of life of the Dene people has been nominated for a 2020 Canadian Screen Award.
“It’s a really detailed look at how traditional Dene people live like how to hunt caribou, what to do with the hides and how to travel in the winter,” Director Ian Toews said. “When we filmed the hunt, it was -25 C to -30 C the whole time and we stayed in the bush in a wall tent. These are ways of life that aren’t seen as much anymore. As long as there are caribou, they are going to keep doing this.”
Toews visited the communities of Black Lake, Fond du Lac, Stony Rapids and Wollaston Lake back in 2018 to shoot the film, which was nominated for Best Documentary Program. It’s called Etthén Heldeli: Caribou Eaters, a phrase Toews said the Dene people use to describe themselves. It took 30 days to shoot and involved travelling to the Northwest Territories and Nunavut as well.
Overall, Toews called it a positive experience and he noted it was easy to work with the people living in those communities. In November 2018, Toews held screenings of the documentary which brought in crowds between 200 to 300 people. He said nobody who attended the screenings were upset about the content or how they were portrayed.
