1971: five film students in their early 20s make a documentary with the Sayisi Dene, who had been relocated to the brawling Seaport town of Churchill, Manitoba. After 15 years of societal decay and the loss of one third of their people; in 1971 the Sayisi Dene are moving back to their homeland. It has taken much of a lifetime to finally begin to understand how this tragedy happened - see: Nuhoniyeh: Our Story. 

At this start of our careers; we intentionally didn't give ourselves specific roles so we could later credit ourselves as needed. 

In retrospect: R.Michael Fuller wrangled the film cameras, Tom Handy did the sound recording, Bob Lang did some extra wildlife filming (caribou), Sheila Petzold managed our very limited budget and I was essentially Producer, Director and Editor. 

We borrowed a 16mm camera and a tape recorder from Quarry Films, Queen's University, Kingston Ontario. CTV gave us 2000' of colour reversal film and in return, they aired this Independent documentary on the nascent W-5 journalistic series. 

My friends stayed Southern Ontario, and I went North after the edit- to be in this vast hereafter… 

Credits

• Produced by: Allan Code, Mike Fuller, Thomas Handy, Sheila Petzold

• Narrator: John Eadie

• With the support of: Quarrie Films - Queen’s University

• Thanks to: The people of the Sayisi Dene and Queen’s University