True North Calling

TRUE NORTH CALLING is a documentary series that follows the lives of several compelling, resourceful Canadians living across the North, showing what it takes to make it and achieve their dreams, in Canada’s toughest terrain.

Production

Logo for Proper Television

Seasons

6 Episodes • Premiered 2017

Still image for True North Calling season 1 episode 1: Taking Risks

1. Taking Risks

A team of staff in Iqaluit makes certain that a fuel transfer from tanker to fuel farm is completed without incident. Fuel manager Franco Buscemi wants to run in the next territorial government election. Raised in Ontario, Kylik Kisoun Taylor returns to Inuvik to run a tourism company. He consults an elder for guidance on a tourist promotion for the annual migration of the reindeer to the calving grounds.

Still image for True North Calling season 1 episode 2: Living Off the Land

2. Living Off the Land

Third-generation Yellowknife fisher Shawn Buckley passes on the tradition of fishing on ice in Great Slave Lake to his son while confronting the memories of losing his brother who fell through the ice. Organic farmers Kate Mechan and Bart Bounds, living off the grid in Takhini Valley, just north of Whitehorse, ponder their future plans in preparation for the birth of their second child.

Still image for True North Calling season 1 episode 3: Next Steps

3. Next Steps

Taylor makes a successful practice run on the reindeer migration before pitching his tour at a meeting of wholesale travel agencies in China. Buscemi makes another step towards launching his political career while highlighting challenges in the community such as poverty, high cost of living and high suicide rates.

Still image for True North Calling season 1 episode 4: Growing Pains

4. Growing Pains

Spring arrives in the north. Mechan and Bounds face an interior-space issue with the birth of their second child. The cost of buying a second yurt for additional space means they have to increase their sales. Buckley had to retrieve his nets early from an early spring storm. To supplement his income, he decides to enter the tourism industry and demonstrate commercial fishing to tourists.

Still image for True North Calling season 1 episode 5: New Beginnings

5. New Beginnings

Stacey Aglok MacDonald, faced challenges producing Qanurli, an Iqaluit-based television show spoken entirely in Inuktitut, including lack of local talent, a small population to audition for roles, insufficient studio space and camera gear lost during transport. Buckley can't find the crane to lift his boat out of Great Slave Lake. A contact of his finds a spot for his boat to overwinter at the dock in Back Bay.

Still image for True North Calling season 1 episode 6: The Future

6. The Future

Mechan and Bounds save enough money to buy the second yurt. While filming for season 6 of Qanurli, MacDonald has to deal with environmental problems (extreme cold and short daylight hours in winter) and socioeconomic challenges (unreliable internet). The reindeer migration tour from north of Inuvik to calving grounds in Richards Island is a success and Taylor stakes out the land for his future home.

Cast

Photo of Candy Palmater

Candy Palmater

Self - Narrator

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