Playing at Victoria Film Festival’s F1RST: A Celebration of Indigenous Film on June 21, 2024. For tickets, please visit this link here.
The story of Wilfred Buck is familiar. Here, we see an intimate portrayal of who he is not only as an indigenous person from Northern (Central) Manitoba but also that of a scholar-bard. Whether that qualifies him as a geek, I’m sure it does!
Just why he’s special is because of what he adds to his lectures. He brings the astronomy to life because of what they represent according to his native roots. For example, the North Star has several names. It’s either known as the Keewatin, which means Going Home Star, or Ekakatchet Atchakos, which in English “It stands Still.” That’s because when anyone photographs the midnight black sky for more than five minutes, the result will consist of curved streaks, and the only star that doesn’t move at all is Polaris.
After watching this film, I’m interested in taking up astronomy again. I was a hobby stargazer once, and that’s because I loved the lore attached to it. Although they came from Greco-Roman studies, I wanted to know more about the constellation of Orion. In Egypt, the locals there believed he was Osiris. But in North America, the natives saw an animal instead, the bison!