I remember,

I first saw this movie at the civic auditorium in a park called Alaskaland, in Fairbanks, Alaska (my home town). In Alaska Native people formed corporations with a settlement from the Federal Government. The corporation my family belongs to is called Doyon, and that corporation put up either some or all of the money to make this film. So when it opened, all of the shareholders were invited to a special viewing of it. Now this was the late seventies, so there weren't as many movies in our daily lives. In Fairbanks, Alaska at that time movies sometimes took as much as a year before they made an appearance. And television was still seen as a competition to movies, so there weren't as many channells showing them. Also, being young, I didn't really pay much attention to any movie that didn't deal directly with being a kid. So watching a story unfold on a big movie screen that not only was about a kid, but a Native kid in Alaska made me about jump out of my seat in disbelief. Now, at first I didn't think the movie would be that great. Native people were never portrayed as anything but a foot note in history, or maybe a drain on society. If they were in a movie, then it was to show the hero character as a good guy for 'slumming it' with the Indians. And, I do remember getting a little bored with the whole adulthood challenges bit, but come on, I was a kid. When George finally made it into the race I was hooked. This small intimate story about a kid growing up and dealing with these problems as a native man, suddenly became a story about a Native man making his mark in the white man's world. All these white people were not only watching a Native man, but cheering for him. Now before you judge me as being reversed racist, just try and put yourself in a society where only whites are portrayed as heros, or where most of the kids in films had crazy little english accents and high voices, and every sentence seemed a question. Even then I noticed dialogue and how it made the audience feel, and finally here was a movie that made Native people feel like their words were valid. Don't forget there were generations of Natives taken from their homes and told not to speak their own language. Not just told, but whipped if caught speaking to each other in that language. Like most things in life it took awhile for me to realize just how important this film was... is to me. Now in my adulthood, when I want to see this film again, when I want to see stories about Native people that don't placate common misperceptions of Native Americans in general, I find that it is not in distribution. Not even on DVD, with a director's commentary, which would be really cool. This, to me, is a tragedy because I know I'm not the only mixed blood Indian out there looking for his heritage. So I want to be a filmmaker. I want to make stories about contemporary Natives, and the issues we face. They'll be funny, action packed, and with a touch of human nature. I think people around the world would be intersted in seeing good creative stories about Alaska, and not the trite stories hollywood seems bent on passing off as 'Alaskan'. Maybe someday I'll have the career and resources to bring this film back to distribution. Who knows maybe I'll be on the commentary. What ever happens, I know that Indigenous people throughout the U.S. and Canada will be better off with more movies that treat them with respect out there. I'll see if I can get some other Native people to write about their experiences with this film, so check back once in awhile to see what's new. And y'know I'd really like to hear from anyone who's seen this film. So I'll be checking back too.