River Journeys
September 25th, 2021
Online via Zoom — click here to join

What was it like to travel along the Mackenzie River a thousand years ago? Two hundred years ago? Or one hundred years ago?

For World Rivers Day, artists from Canada’s north were asked to consider this question. Their new works will be unveiled at grunt gallery on Saturday September 25th at 1:30pm PDT via Zoom.

Sculptor John Sabourin created a work based on the ancient story of the giant Yamoria, who carved out waterfalls along the Mackenzie. Performance artist Jeneen Frei Njootli was inspired by the oral history, “The First Axe,” which describes an encounter between the Dene and a white trader around 1800. Curator Sharon Snowshoe will present Chief Jim Koe’s story of the signing of Treaty 11, one hundred years ago. Finally, filmmakers Peter Mather and Arlyn Charlie will give a sneak peek of wildlife they encountered this summer while canoeing down the Peel River to the Arctic Ocean.

Join us for this unique celebration of the river known as the Dehcho, the “Big River”.

This event is hosted by Drew Ann Wake. Wake received her BA in Anthropology and an MA in Sociology from the University of British Columbia. She then went to work for the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, attending the hearings of the Mackenzie Valley Pipeline Inquiry as it travelled to thirty Dene and Inuvialuit communities across the Northwest Territories. After a stint as a museum curator, she began developing educational games that have now been played by 25,000,000 students around the world.

Accessibility: ASL interpretation and auto-generated captions and transcription by otter.ai will be provided. We acknowledge that live translation means that some words may not be translated accurately to English and we welcome your feedback and questions in the comments during the presentation.