The story of how Boyce's best known movie 'Cree Hunters of Mistassini' came to be made is interesting. While working on the Cree opposition to the James Bay project Boyce got to know the Ronnie Jolly, a Mistassini hunter, and especially the younger members of the family. He took them as symptomatic of the stresses and exploitation that northern hunters had undergone over a very short period. The family had one son who was a draftsman working for Indian Affairs in Ottawa, a daughter who was a hippie in Vancouver, and another son, Eddie, who had dropped out of school to live in the bush with his parents, intending to be a hunter like his father. Boyce first planned a movie that would span this family's whole experience, with the working title 'Cree Family'. For what was intended to be only a few minutes in total in the final production, the film crew flew into Ronnie's camp just as they were preparing for the winter season and constructing their winter lodge. They filmed everything - the lodge construction, hunting by canoe, Ronnnie teaching Eddie beaver trapping, etc - and they also really captured the warm hospitality that is in all Cree winter camps. Back in Montreal he showed me some of the footage, and we all realized he had some amazing footage. He therefore put the Cree Family project on the back burner, and the film crew flew back to Ronnie's camp in mid winter, and the rest is history ... But he did not abandon the original film idea. It eventually emerged as the NFB film 'Our Land is Our Life', taking the original idea in many new directions to bring in issues from other parts of Canada, a much more overtly political film. Adrian Tanner
Martin, thank you. Boyce's voice came through so well. I had such a chuckle and insight with "famous passage of Engels describing how avoidable deaths caused by the ownership class's indifference amounted to nothing less than murder." And thought of the pandemic, and well things just don't change.
❤️Boyce Richardson...thank you for 52 years of exposing the indignities from the White Supremacist Racists Canadian Government and the Crown towards our Indigenous People’s. RIP SIR and thank you for always being a throne in their side for us seeing what they never will.💜 NANNETTE Gonnella Onondaga Nation Snipe Clan Haudenosaunee New York
The story of how Boyce's best known movie 'Cree Hunters of Mistassini' came to be made is interesting. While working on the Cree opposition to the James Bay project Boyce got to know the Ronnie Jolly, a Mistassini hunter, and especially the younger members of the family. He took them as symptomatic of the stresses and exploitation that northern hunters had undergone over a very short period. The family had one son who was a draftsman working for Indian Affairs in Ottawa, a daughter who was a hippie in Vancouver, and another son, Eddie, who had dropped out of school to live in the bush with his parents, intending to be a hunter like his father. Boyce first planned a movie that would span this family's whole experience, with the working title 'Cree Family'. For what was intended to be only a few minutes in total in the final production, the film crew flew into Ronnie's camp just as they were preparing for the winter season and constructing their winter lodge. They filmed everything - the lodge construction, hunting by canoe, Ronnnie teaching Eddie beaver trapping, etc - and they also really captured the warm hospitality that is in all Cree winter camps. Back in Montreal he showed me some of the footage, and we all realized he had some amazing footage. He therefore put the Cree Family project on the back burner, and the film crew flew back to Ronnie's camp in mid winter, and the rest is history ... But he did not abandon the original film idea. It eventually emerged as the NFB film 'Our Land is Our Life', taking the original idea in many new directions to bring in issues from other parts of Canada, a much more overtly political film. Adrian Tanner
Martin, thank you. Boyce's voice came through so well. I had such a chuckle and insight with "famous passage of Engels describing how avoidable deaths caused by the ownership class's indifference amounted to nothing less than murder." And thought of the pandemic, and well things just don't change.
❤️Boyce Richardson...thank you for 52 years of exposing the indignities from the White Supremacist Racists Canadian Government and the Crown towards our Indigenous People’s. RIP SIR and thank you for always being a throne in their side for us seeing what they never will.💜 NANNETTE Gonnella Onondaga Nation Snipe Clan Haudenosaunee New York