Fox & the Tiny Demon explores themes of mental health, depression, and intergenerational trauma of residential schools

 

Animated film explores the strength found in the shadow of demons

Thursday, April 3rd, 2025 

“Qaq Wah Hell Cliff,” a still from Qaqsoss Naka Wahantuhsis by Tara Audibert.

 

By Odette Auger
Local Journalism Initiative Reporter
Windspeaker.com

Qaqsoss Naka Wahantuhsis (Fox & the Tiny Demon) is a new animated film directed by award winning animator, director and artist Tara Audibert, who has ties to Neqotkuk (Tobique First Nation) through her mother. 

The film addresses issues of mental health while preserving Indigenous culture and language.  It is the first animated feature film in Wolastoqey, an Algonquian language spoken by the Wolastoqiyik (Maliseet/Malecite) people.

The film is narrated by Audibert's great aunt Carole Polchies of Woodstock First Nation, who is one of the few remaining fluent Wolastoquey speakers. Audibert has used her aunt’s voice in other films to tell “Indigenous stories that I've heard all my life, and then I animated them.” Audibert has “grown up to appreciate the stories even more. You hear them over and over and over again, but these stories change every time you hear them, and depending on who’s listening, as well.”

Audibert takes the task of creating from Wolastoqey stories seriously.

“I question a lot, because I am taking these stories that are supposed to be passed down verbally, but I want to preserve them, and I want to share them,” she said.

“That's a part of how I can be a part of reconciliation. My family is willing to share, and I have the ability to share these a little bit wider.”

For this project, Audibert wrote the story and Polchies translated it and narrated as the storyteller of the film.

“Some of the words were too modern. She had to think of how to combine existing words to capture the meaning,” said Audibert. That’s when the work of her great-grandfather, Dr. Peter Lewis Paul, comes in. He was awarded the Order of Canada a few months before he passed in 1987 for his work to preserve the language, including writing a Wolastoquey dictionary.

Tara Audibert, MoxyFox Studio.

Finding ways to talk about mental health

Audibert was inspired by classic animated films such as Watership Down, which dealt with deeper subject matter.

“It's all about these animals and we're telling this story. There is the reality of the human world that's in there, but we're looking at it through the eyes of the animals,” she said of that film.

Audibert seeks to create a similarly impactful and meaningful experience for young audiences. The story of Fox & the Tiny Demon explores themes of mental health, depression, and the intergenerational trauma of residential schools. Audibert approaches these heavy topics through an animated, child-friendly lens that allows for open-ended discussion.

“Those are very heavy things. How do you talk to children about those things?” So Audibert created a story and a space where viewers can be curious about a character’s actions.

“Then you can have a conversation that's not based around my mental health or your mental health or a specific person's mental health. It's about the health of these characters. And it doesn't even have to be about mental health. ‘Why do you think they did that? Why do you think they did it’? There can be a conversation that doesn’t have to be so heavy.”

Audibert’s mom was a day school survivor, and the filmmaker reflects on the ongoing impacts. “It's so much to piece together, and I think that a lot of times it's hard to talk about these things. And how can we frame them?”

Finding a way to talk about the impacts was part of her idea behind the film, Audibert said.

“That it's continuing to persist because of the third, second, third generations that are still suffering, not knowing why your parents were unable to do things that are on the TV of a “normal family. I wanted to talk about what happens when you have mental illness. and you have to live with someone that has mental illness? And you don't have a choice when you're a kid. You just have to live with them until you don't. But can we talk about that in some way?”

Audibert sees artists as “the counterculture, the rebels. We're the ones that are supposed to stand up to everything that is questionable.”

By lifting up a mirror to society, people can see things from different perspectives, she said.

“I think that's what most artists are hoping to do, is just to impart a little bit and share, because I think many artists are on the outside looking in, or we're on whatever that outer edge is. And I think that's an important place to be, because that's where we're going. She said that once others reach the edge where artists are, artists expand beyond.

“And then once people get there and that's the norm, then artists have to move out further and see what's out there again and then show that back. There's no way to get to a better place without that extreme,” said Audibert.

“I think to be able to change people's minds is a large thing. And then the artist keeps going, keeps forward with the mirror reflecting back, and that's our job constantly.”

“Qaqsoss’ path,” a still from Qaqsoss Naka Wahantuhsis by Tara Audibert.

Storyteller first

Audibert knew she was an artist since she was two years old, and she chuckles about the early manifestations of that creative impulse.

“I got into trouble a lot,” from drawing on her wallpaper to figuring out how to draw characters from cartoons.

She paused the VCR and wrapped Saran Wrap over the TV.

“I got this brilliant idea. I'm going to put Saran Wrap over and I trace it, and then I can put it on paper and trace it off there, and I'll have a copy of what it looks like,” she said. “Little did I know that permanent marker goes through. There's a reason not to do that,” she laughed. “It went right on the actual TV. I got in a lot of trouble for trying to trace stuff from the Flintstones.”

Audibert keeps adults in mind as much as children when making her films.

“Why wouldn’t I want to make something that’s good for everyone?”

She recalls watching cartoons with her younger sister. She knows parents are watching alongside their young ones.

“I hope people will want to watch (Fox & the Tiny Demon) more than once because there's so many little things included in the backgrounds and in the meaning of it,” Audibert said. Similar to listening to the variations of her great aunt’s traditional stories, “Maybe each time they can find something new or different.”

The film was produced on a small indie budget with a minimal crew of 40, which is “unheard of in animation,” she said. Audibert is grateful for the dedicated team that connected deeply with the project's themes and went above and beyond.

“They gave far more than they were paid for. And everyone in the crew told me they found this story very meaningful to them personally.”

“And I was just kind of amazed because there it is, right there. That’s part of reconciliation,” said Audibert. She’s still looking for a distributor for Qaqsoss Naka Wahantuhsis, and the team is preparing to submit to film festivals in addition to having local screenings and the upcoming premiere in Miramichi, New Brunswick on April 19 at 2 p.m. at the Cineplex Miramichi.

Local Journalism Initiative Reporters are supported by a financial contribution made by the Government of Canada.

Dancing who we are | Alaska Native Art, Ep. 5

 

This video is a part of our Alaska Native Art series, produced in partnership with the Alaska Native Heritage Center. For more, go to https://www.famsf.org/stories/close-l...

 

Learning about art is . . . learning a new way, new language, almost. A new way of seeing the world . . . cultural education.

—Abel Ryan

 

MORE: https://www.famsf.org/stories/close-look/alaska-native-art

Alaska Native leader Hensley subject of new documentary

Willie Hensley is a well-known Alaska Native leader, but a documentary that premiered this week in Anchorage gives you a chance to get to know what makes him tick.

Rhonda McBride from our flagship station KNBA has this preview.

Willie Hensley has worn a lot of hats, and you can see a lot of them in this film that filled with snapshots of his life, as well as something else, says the film’s producer Marla Williams.

“That was really fun in this film to look at how many different hairstyles Willie has had throughout life. He’s gone from a flattop and a nerdy little side part, to long sixties sideburns and now to a ponytail all the way down his back.”

The film showcases Hensley’s charisma and traditional Inupiaq humor. It’s called “Homeland“ and chronicles his rise as a champion for the Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act and eventually a statewide leader.

“I think he’s a man of his times. He’s always current. He’s always looking forward, but he’s not stuck in his past. He uses his past to keep him moving forward.”

The documentary is filled with moments that explores Hensley’s talent for walking between two worlds – that of Native culture and the modern world of business and politics.

It traces his roots to a sod house near Kotzebue, Alaska.

In the film, Hensley takes his daughter Priscilla to show her where he was raised as a small boy.

Only a few pieces of wood and mounds of sod remain.

“Not a table, not a chair, not a bed. This was home. It kept us warm on the coldest of days.”

The film also takes you to a religious boarding school in Tennessee where Hensley arrived as a teenager with only a shopping bag full of belongings.

His classmates didn’t know what to make of him and the care packages of whale meat and other subsistence foods he received, but were happy to have him on their football team, because he was one of the fastest on the field.

“In those days, if you’re a young Iñupiaq that age, if you survive TB and chicken pox, and influenza and everything else that everybody caught, you’re pretty damned tough.”

The documentary’s next showing will be in Kotzebue on April 17 and will be available on online in the future.

It’s the tenth installment of the Magnetic North: The Alaska Character series, which has profiled political figures like Governor Bill Sheffield and Native leaders like Jacob Adams and carver Nathan Jackson.

The series was made possible by the Alaska Humanities Forum and the Rasmuson Foundation.

 

 

Deadly Collective

 

WATCH VIDEO: https://www.aptnnews.ca/national-news/family-in-saskatoon-fighting-to-stop-adoption-of-indigenous-children-into-non-indigenous-homes/

Family in Saskatoon fighting to stop adoption of Indigenous children into non-Indigenous homes

By Rachel May

A family in Saskatoon says it’s trying to stop the adoption of Indigenous children into a non-Indigenous system and bring the ones already in custody home.

“I’d like them to hear that they have to stop this,” said Jo-Anne Ebach. “They have to stop hurting people and taking kids away from families who love them.”

Ebach is a ‘60s Scoop survivor meaning she was taken from her family and adopted out of her community. She said she understands some of the realities of living in care and want to protect her young family from experiencing the same fate.

Her own child, Jas Morgan, was taken away from her in 1998 because of a “birth alert.” That’s when hospitals contact social workers ahead of a scheduled birth to remove the child. They have been outlawed in several provinces.

“I’m ready to fight, because I’m tired of social services walking in our family’s life and just walking over us and ruining children,” she said.

Morgan was adopted less than a year after she was taken. She said she was abuse while living with the adoptive family.

She now leads an Indigenous policy research group called Deadly Collective. The organization is pursuing legal action against the Saskatchewan government.

“It’s not even about money, it’s just about letting all the kids know someone’s fighting for them,” she said, “and that like this will have a bigger epistemological impact.”

Spill shits down Keystone Pipeline

AP STORY: https://www.chicoer.com/2025/04/08/keystone-pipeline-rupture/

The pipeline transported an average 624,000 barrels — or more than 26 million gallons — per day in 2024, according to Canadian regulators. It stretches 2,689 miles (4327 kilometers) from Alberta, Canada, to Texas.

The Keystone oil pipeline was shut down Tuesday morning after it ruptured in North Dakota, with the spill confined to an agricultural field.  The cause of the rupture and the volume of crude oil spilled were not immediately clear.  An employee working at the site near Fort Ransom heard a “mechanical bang” and shut down the pipeline within about two minutes, said Bill Suess, spill investigation program manager with the North Dakota Department of Environmental Quality.

Oil was reported surfacing 300 yards south of the pump station in a field and emergency personnel responded, Suess said.  No people or structures were affected by the spill, he said.  A nearby stream that only flows during part of the year was not impacted but was blocked off and isolated as a precaution, he said.  It’s unclear at what rate the 30-inch pipeline was flowing, but even at two minutes “it’s going to have a fairly good volume,” Suess said. “But … we’ve had much, much bigger spills,” including one involving the same pipeline a few years ago in Walsh County, North Dakota, he said. “I don’t think it’s going to be that huge,” Suess said.

The $5.2 billion pipeline constructed in 2011 Keystone Pipeline carries crude oil across Saskatchewan and Manitoba through North Dakota, South Dakota, Nebraska, Kansas and Missouri to refineries in Illinois and Oklahoma.  Though the pipeline was constructed by TC Energy, it is now managed by a liquid pipelines business South Bow as of 2024.  The Associated Press has reached out to South Bow for comment.  

A proposed extension to the pipeline called Keystone XL would have transported crude oil to refineries on the Gulf Coast, but it was ultimately abandoned by the company in 2021 after years of protests from environmental activists and Indigenous communities over environmental concerns.

The Pipeline Safety Trust said this latest leak adds to the troubled history of the Keystone pipeline, which has had 13 significant incidents in the 15 years it has been operating. 

SEARCH #NoDAPL on this blog for many more stories

Healing of Nations: Native American Medicine Men and Spiritual Leaders

Musical Time Travel: "Polyphony Meets the Prairies"

Andrew Balfour, a Cree composer and a ’60s Scoop survivor, has spent nearly two decades developing the ideas behind Polyphony Meets the Prairies. 

The concert tells the story of a young Cree girl, Chepi, who is guided by a trickster through time and place, encountering prophetic music from figures such as Hildegard von Bingen, Portuguese composer Alonso Lobo, and Mexican Indigenous composer Manuel de Zumaya. 

The music, both old and new, serves as a bridge between past and present, Indigenous and European traditions, and storytelling and song. 

SOURCE: https://classic107.com/articles/a-musical-time-machine-polyphony-meets-the-prairies-explores-history-and-healing

 

Andrew Balfour is a Cree composer and conductor from Winnipeg, Manitoba. He is the artistic director of the vocal ensemble Dead of Winter.

Balfour was nominated for the 2023 Juno Award for Classical Album of the Year (Small Ensemble) for Nagamo, recorded with Musica Intima vocal ensemble.^[1][2]

Early life

Balfour was born in the Fisher River Cree Nation, located north of Winnipeg, in 1967.^[3] He was taken from his birth mother at six months old as part of the Sixties Scoop and adopted by a White settler family of Scottish descent.^[4] Balfour's adoptive father was a minister at All Saints’ Anglican Church in Winnipeg and his mother was a violinist. His adoptive family would encourage his interest in music which developed through choral singing and playing trumpet and trombone.^[4]

Balfour would go on to attend Brandon University, later dropping out. During this period he would develop a dependence on alcohol. Balfour was arrested in 1992 for vandalism and was then placed in Milner Ridge Correctional Centre.^[4] Following his time in prison, he would begin singing in an informal choir with a group of singers which would later become Camerata Nova (now Dead of Winter), of which Balfour is artistic director.^[4][5][6]

New Science to Fight the Old Science

Ancient DNA Revolution September/October 2024

By Eric A. Powell: North American High Plains  

https://archaeology.org/issues/september-october-2024/collection/ancestors-of-the-blackfoot/ancient-dna-revolution/

The Blackfoot Confederacy is today made up of four bands. The traditional lands of three of them, the Blood (Kainai), Piikani, and Siksika First Nations, are on the plains of southern Alberta, Canada, while the Blackfeet Tribe’s homeland is in northern Montana.  Many scholars have concluded that the confederacy is a relative newcomer to the High Plains.  Linguists classify the Blackfoot language as part of the Algonquin family, which includes many languages spoken by peoples living around the Great Lakes and on the Eastern Seaboard.  Since the nineteenth century, Euro-American anthropologists have argued that the ancestors of the people of the Blackfoot Confederacy must have originally lived near the Great Lakes.  At some point in the last millennium, they are thought to have migrated to the High Plains.  But the Blackfoot have no collective memory of a migration from the east.  Some of their stories do tell of a migration from the north that took place long ago, when giant beavers and camels still existed, but nothing in Blackfoot oral history matches the history anthropologists have written for them.  (I call that BAD HISTORY...)

A genetic study has now provided support for the Blackfoot people’s belief that they have lived on their traditional lands from time immemorial.  Working in partnership with the Blood (Kainai) First Nation and the Blackfeet Tribe, a team led by archaeologist Maria Zedeño of the University of Arizona and archaeogeneticist Ripan Malhi of the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign analyzed DNA samples taken from six living members of the Blackfoot Confederacy and from the remains of seven ancestral Blackfoot. 

To their surprise, the researchers discovered that the Blackfoot did not share any genetic affinity with Algonquin groups, or, indeed, with any other Native American peoples.  Statistical analysis showed that the Blackfoot lineage probably broke off from other Native groups around 18,000 years ago.  The Blackfoot likely lived in relative isolation for millennia before interacting with Algonquin speakers.  These new insights into Blackfoot genetic heritage support recent linguistic research suggesting that the Blackfoot language has features that belong to an ancient language spoken by a people who lived in the Blackfoot Confederacy’s homeland.  These features are thought to have long predated the advent of Algonquin languages.

“This really confirms what we already knew,” says Gheri Hall, an archaeologist with the Blackfeet Tribal Historic Preservation Office, who notes that the genetic evidence could help the tribe in future legal cases involving land disputes. “Now we can use the new science to fight the old science.”

Members of the Siksika First Nation, 1913

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Dark Past: “We were basically human flagpoles”

'Human Flagpoles': Dark story behind Inuit scene on $2 bill

Musician Lucie Idlout says the discontinued bank note reflects a dark time for Canada's Inuit

Andrew Friesen · CBC News · May 7, 2014

Circulated between 1974 and 1979, the two-dollar bill features Joseph Idlout and his relatives preparing their kayaks for a hunt. (Bank of Canada / National Currency Collection)

If you’re a Canadian of a certain age, you’ve likely seen the Idlout family. In fact, you’ve probably carried them around in your back pocket.

The reason: they’re featured on the back of the 1974 two-dollar bill.

Part of the Scenes of Canada series, the discontinued bank note depicts a group of six Inuit men preparing their kayaks for a hunt.

One of the men is Joseph Idlout, the grandfather of Canadian musician Lucie Idlout. On a recent episode of the CBC Radio program DNTO, she revealed how the photograph of her grandfather and his relatives came to be taken.

Photographer Douglas Wilkinson spent years documenting Joseph Idlout and his community. (Douglas Wilkinson / Library and Archives Canada (PA-189095))

“My grandfather was known to be an excellent hunter,” said Idlout.

“He was one of the first few Inuit to receive the Coronation medal from the Queen - I kind of view him as a superhero, even though I never met him.”

Based on a photograph taken by documentarian Douglas Wilkinson, the bill features Joseph Idlout and his relatives hunting nearby the Baffin Island community of Pond Inlet.

On its surface, the bill appears to reflect nothing more than an innocent scene of daily Inuit life. But dig a little deeper, and the story behind the photograph becomes much more complicated.

“We were basically human flagpoles.”

In the 1950s, the Canadian government relocated a number of struggling Inuit families from Inukjuak (Quebec) to the communities of Resolute Bay and Grise Fiord - hundreds of kilometres to the north.

Ostensibly done to improve their standard of living, the realities of life in the High Arctic proved difficult for families accustomed to the warmer temperatures and more fertile tundra of Quebec. To ease their transition, Joseph Idlout was hired to instruct the southern Inuit on life in the unforgiving northern climate.

“His role in Resolute Bay was to assist with teaching Inuit how to survive in a much harsher climate than what they were used to,” said Idlout.

As the transplanted Inuit struggled to adapt to their new surroundings, the motivation behind their relocation became increasingly clear.  

“The sad story is that we were basically human flagpoles, so the Canadian government could assert sovereignty over the high arctic.”

Lucie Idlout: "It is another example of how Inuit were part of asserting sovereignty" (Facebook)

In 2010, the Minister of Indian Affairs and Northern Development issued an apology to Canada’s Inuit people, expressing regret “for the hardship and suffering caused by the relocation.” 

And while adjusting to a new and unfamiliar landscape was challenging, Lucie Idlout said that it was the actually the change in lifestyle that had the biggest consequences - both for the transplanted communities and for her grandfather. 

“With the amenities and modernness of southern life coming to the north … it really changed the way Inuit lived," said Idlout.

“It was a lot of change that happened really quickly, and it had a lot of negative impacts on the people who lived there.”

And though he was considered to be an exceptionally skilled and well-respected man, the move proved to be particularly traumatizing for Joseph Idlout. Although reports of his death vary, Lucie Idlout says that her grandfather’s eventual suicide can be traced back to the relocation.

“The transition of life was just too fast and too much.”

Bills were meant to inspire Canadian pride

The Scenes of Canada series, which was printed and put into circulation between 1969 and 1979, was meant to instill pride and reflect Canadian settlements from sea to sea.

When asked how she feels looking at the bill today, Idlout says she has mixed feelings. 

Detail of the 1974 "Scenes of Canada" two-dollar bill (Bank of Canada)

“I don’t think there’s any coincidence the photograph was shot in the 50s, just before the relocation,” said Idlout. “It is another example of how Inuit were part of asserting sovereignty over different parts — so Canada could claim it as their own.” 

But despite the darkness the bill represents, Idlout still feels a certain pride when she looks at the image of her family on the $2 note.

“It became less of a photo and more of a piece of our history - that involved important people from my family and people I love very much.”

SOURCE: https://www.cbc.ca/news/indigenous/human-flagpoles-dark-story-behind-inuit-scene-on-2-bill-1.2632380

Adoption Reality: SOUTH KOREA

 

South Korea says it sent babies abroad for adoption ‘like luggage’

For most of her life, Mary Bowers had one version of her adoption story. 

It was that she was an orphan — born in South Korea to a single mother who, unable to take care of her, handed her over to an adoption agency when she was a baby. In 1982, Bowers was adopted by a family in Colorado. 

During the COVID-19 pandemic, though, she took the time to examine her past more carefully. She started finding discrepancies in her adoption documents. That’s when she decided to move to South Korea and keep digging. 

“As I delved further into my adoption file, I found the name of a father, as well, with his whole background, description, aunts, uncles, hometown, height, weight, all of that,” she said. “I was like, ‘well, if he wasn’t in the picture, this seems like a lot of detail to provide about this man,’ who honestly I had spent a good portion of my life hating because I thought, ‘well how could you leave [my birth mother] like that?’”

Bowers also found other discrepancies in her adoption records. For example, she was listed under three different names. The details just didn’t add up.   

In 2022, Bowers joined more than 350 Korean adoptees — from 11 different countries — who filed cases with South Korea’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission alleging all kinds of malpractice in adoptions.  Last week, the commission released a damning report on this — it said South Korean adoption agencies sent children abroad like “luggage” for decades.  The report includes details about falsified documents, profit-driven decision-making and children taken from their parents without consent.

“The commission determined that the state violated the human rights of adoptees protected under the constitution and international agreements, by neglecting its duty to ensure basic human rights, including inadequate legislation, poor management and oversight, and failures in implementing proper administrative procedures while sending large numbers of children abroad,” the commission said in a statement.

The commission’s report corroborates an investigation by The Associated Press last year, about how Korean birth mothers were pressured or deceived into giving up their children while adoption agencies bribed hospitals to route babies their way. The AP also produced a documentary on the subject in collaboration with Frontline (PBS) and compiled resources for adoptees who have questions about their backgrounds here.

SOURCE:  https://theworld.org/stories/2025/04/02/south-korea-says-it-sent-babies-abroad-for-adoption-like-luggage

HUMAN TRAFFICKING = BILLION DOLLAR ADOPTION INDUSTRY

MOHICAN Landback!

 

GREAT STORY

 

KEEP READING

 

More: This tribe helped win the Revolution, then were expelled and migrated to Wisconsin. What's changed now?