Film Review: What We Carry

Like the US, Canada has an ugly history of trying to erase native culture and language through the establishment of residential schools, where native children were sent involuntarily. Unlike the US, Canada has attempted in recent years to acknowledge the wrongs perpetrated in these schools, and to repair relations between the indigenous and non-indigenous communities through reconciliation.

What We Carry is a sensitive documentary that captures both the necessity and the difficulty of having these conversations.

The residential schools in Canada were established in the late 19^th century. The last school closed in the 1990s. In those years, countless indigenous children were forcibly removed from their families. Many underwent severe corporal punishment and sexual abuse. As one film subject recalls, the goal was to remove “the Indian from the child”.

In 1962 a woman in England named Jennifer accepted a job through an advertisement to teach at one of the schools in northern Alberta. During her years there she kept journals and collected newsletters, photographs, and other materials.

Jump to the present where Jennifer’s daughter, Katrinka, and granddaughter, Bracken, wonder what to do with the trunk of materials. They are put in touch with women at the Bigstone Cree reservation, Kat and Willow, and drive across the country to northern Alberta with the trunk to meet them.

Katrinka and Bracken are well aware of the sensitivity of the materials, and have trepidation about how conversations will go. Kat is very wary of their motives. However, thanks to the honesty of their conversations and questions, there are breakthroughs in understanding and acceptance.

Kat arranges meetings with community elders, some of whom were students at the school where Jennifer taught. Their lasting pain and hesitation around talking of those years is heartbreaking. The horrific stories of the schools are only obliquely referenced; the goal of the film is not to relive those experiences but rather to initiate or continue healing.

What We Carry allows the viewer to gain an understanding of the lasting cultural, psychological and historical implications of this institutionalized cruelty. Kudos to Katrinka and Bracken for their curiosity and bravery in taking on this project (the film includes an unexpected sequence involving Jennifer, too). And watching the gradual warmth and openness exhibited by Kat and the other residents of the community is encouraging, and hugely instructive.

What We Carry was directed by Jessie Anthony. It had its US premiere at SBIFF last week.