Fort Rupert (1951) – [?] Robert Gardner and Sidney Peterson

A fishing skiff disguised as a traditional canoe arrives at the shore. ‘Fort Rupert’ (1951) frame grab.

16 mins. Colour, probably 16mm. Extra-diegetic unsubtitled Native chants on the soundtrack. Voice-over in English.

Production: Orbit Films, Seattle, for distribution by Dimensions, Inc. 

Source: This film is available via the American Indian Film Gallery here. A copy is also viewable on YouTube here. Other copies are reported to be available from the J. Fred MacDonald collection in the Library of Congress, Seattle Library, the Victoria Library and the National Film Board of Canada. 

Background: This film appears to have been cut from research footage shot in Fort Rupert (Tsaxis), on the northeast coast of Vancouver Island, in May-June 1950, in association with the major fiction film that Robert Gardner (1925-2014) and the avant-garde film-maker Sidney Peterson (1905-2000) planned to make there through their production company, Orbit Films. (See the entry for Blunden Harbour for further details)

When the fiction film project was abandoned, this 16mm companion footage was edited into a free-standing film. It appears to be the same film referred to by Peterson under the title Potlatch.

The footage was shot by Hy Hirsh (1911-1961), an experimental film-maker and associate of Peterson’s from San Francisco. The sound, mostly consisting of Native chanting was recorded by Morris Dowd. The voice in the voice-over appears to be that of Gardner, though this is not indicated in the credits. 

Content: The film opens with a pan down the totem pole at Fort Rupert before joining a canoe approaching the shore. A man chants in the bow, others play clapsticks. The boat is a fishing skiff that has been decorated to look like a traditional canoe (see image above). 

The voice-over laments that the traditions practised by “one of the most vigorous aboriginal societies on the entire continent” are being progressively lost. The ‘Kwakiutl’ find themselves caught in a situation where totem poles are disappearing, but telephone poles have not yet arrived.

The men come ashore and dance briefly. This is followed by a lengthy series of establishing shots of the shore around the village, with children playing, and extensive racks of fish drying in the sun. An old woman  works on a string figure. There are more carved figures. 

Around 5:40, the film moves indoors to show a series of ‘potlatch’ dances. These are presented as if they were taking place in a Big House, but in fact it was a boathouse converted for the purposes of the film. 

The scene is very poorly lit and the shooting no more than minimally competent, but there are some fine masks on display. These may be the same ones that would appear in the other Orbit film productions, Blunden Harbour and Dances of the Kwakiutl. The same is true of the wall hangings, which are decorated with traditional designs but do not themselves look traditional. But as far as one can tell, the dancers do seem to be different, at least for the most part.

Text: Jacknis 2000: 109-110, Williamson 2019.

© 2018 Paul Henley