THE ICE WALK
“The Ice Walk” is a 76 minute documentary that exposes the little told story of the treacherous journey that the Mi’kmaq people had to take across the ice from mainland Prince Edward Island, Canada to Lennox Island reserve where they had been forced to settle. It wasn’t until the 1970’s that a bridge was built to connect the reserve to the mainland giving the community a safe way to get access to basic necessities and services. In 2021 the Lennox Island first nation and ally settlers worked together to host a reconciliation event commemorating those community members lost to the ice and to give allies an opportunity to ask for forgiveness. But as community Elders share their stories and traumatic memories they question whether The Ice Walk is just another performative reconciliation event or is the settler community really ready to commit to change.
TITLE
The Ice Walk
SCREENING
Friday October 14 – 9pm “The Ice Walk”
Eliza Knockwood in a Two Spirit Mi’kmaq filmmaker living and working out of Epekwitk (also known as Prince Edward Island, Canada) started in the broadcast television industry at the young age of nineteen. Within a year she became the production coordinator on a television series and held that role for three years. In 2006 Eliza began her journey with documentary film and has directed several self produced shorts and community productions. In 2021 Eliza directed her first longer form project called The Ice Walk which was initially created in partnership with Bell Fibe TV1 and then repackaged into feature length film. She has just wrapped filming another short form series titled Gina’matimg – Time of Learning and is currently developing.a feature doc titled The Rite of Passage.
