Tag Archives: APTN

Featured, Reality, Lifestyle & Documentary

Mohawk Ironworkers features Eiffel Al!

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I am just going to get this out of the way: I am terrified of falling.

I am not afraid of heights so long as there is some logical way that I cannot fall—safety harness, railing, plexiglass—I am completely at ease. Amusement park rides? The higher the better.

If, however, it is just me up high and nothing but my own skill keeping me from falling, I am terrified!*

So to watch any of these episodes of Mohawk Ironworkers sets  my nerves just a little on edge. However, this episode was stressful for me to watch. My anxiety level was through the roof and I found myself wincing at the death-defying feats Albert Stalk, Jr. performed. I closed my eyes during his commercial. He is brilliant, and the footage is amazing. To be honest, I had never heard of “Eiffel Al” before this but WOW, what a life! I am left amazed, and he is IMHO barking mad to have done this. Brilliant, but barking mad!

We trace the life of Stalk, Jr., an ironworker from Kahnawa:ke who was the first to scale the Eiffel Tower without any safety equipment. From this fame, Albert earned a living as a model before eventually settling down to home building. If you didn’t catch the episode, I highly recommend you stream it online at APTN. This one will have you on the edge of your seat!

*(Usually, I watch a show twice before I review it; once to get the gist and a second time to grab specific details. This time, I just couldn’t. It has nothing to do with the quality of the content. Just call me a wuss!)

Mohawk Ironworkers airs Tuesdays at 7 p.m. ET on APTN.

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Featured, Reality, Lifestyle & Documentary

Taken: Emily Osmond

Emily Osmond retired to her home community near Kawacatoose First Nation, Saskatchewan, after living a full life having run three different businesses and raising several children as her own.

Emily lived alone with her dogs, not wanting to be in a retirement home waiting to die. She kept track of her medication on a calendar; on September 13, 2007, Emily made her last entry on that calendar and vanished without a trace. Her family believes Emily was taken—her dogs were abandoned—she had told no one she was leaving and her purse was still in her home when the police investigated.

The family suspects there was foul play. It appeared to family members her things had been disturbed and unfamiliar tire tracks riddled her property. It was unlikely she could travel far from her home as she used a cane. To further create heartache for the family, Emily’s grand nephew, Cody Wolf, disappeared a few years later. As a result, the community and law enforcement agencies have come together.

Lloyd Goodwill, RCMP-retired, has a hard time understanding how one missing person case is somehow more important than another, as is the case with so many of the murdered and missing Indigenous women and girls. The lack of that equity in the past is why we are now seeing an inquiry by the Canadian federal government. This case also raises awareness that Indigenous women and girls live with a higher risk of violence in their lives simply due to their Indigenity.

Taken is currently running a contest via Facebook. You could win a visit to the set in 2017 and be a part of the shoot. Interested participants can find details here. The name of the winner will be announced on Facebook following the airing of next week’s episode on October 14.

Taken airs a new episode Fridays at 7:30 p.m. ET on APTN.

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Featured

Comments and queries for the week of September 30

Wild Archaeology in the U.S.?

Do you know if this is available online for U.S. watchers? —Courtney

We’re not sure if it’s geo-blocked or not, but try streaming Wild Archaeology on APTN’s website.

Tickets to The Goods?

Would I be able to get tickets to The Goods next Thursday? —Nicki

Follow the link to The Goods website and order your free tickets.

CraveTV continues to grow, Shomi shuts down

I think that both Crave TV and Shomi had to expect it would take a few years to grow. Netflix has had six years. It’s an expensive game to get into but it’s a necessary one. People are cord-cutting because they are finding stuff for free online and getting free TV streaming devices. I’ve said it before, but the only thing keeping me from cord-cutting is that I’m only allowed 20GB a month of data thanks to my only option of satellite Internet and my desire to watch Winnipeg Jets and the Saskatchewan Roughriders and the Olympics. I’m actually thinking of moving to a nearby town that has unlimited Internet access, so I’m seriously considering it. If TSN releases an app of their own, I’d go with that for sure. Maybe TSN could somehow integrate with CraveTV? That would be an attractive feature, the ability to stream games. People would for sure go with it. I have Netflix Canada (I got tired of trying to keep switching it to Netflix U.S.) but truthfully, after having it for a while, you eventually watch most of what you want to watch on it, you need supplementary stuff so that’s why I had Shomi too. I actually subscribed to Shomi to watch specific shows, but stayed because I saw other shows I like. CraveTV has more shows I like, though. I’m still waiting for it to be made available on Xbox Live. —Alicia

Hulu have locked themselves out since they sold most of the shows to CTV/Global/City. In the States, CBS and The CW are doing their own streamers which somewhat have the same problem. You can sense Amazon is circling here. In addition to the links, they already do things with Prime that Netflix never will and smaller U.S. channels like Starz with Outlander and USA Network with Mr. Robot don’t have the resources to launch here directly themselves, they already sent their shows to Amazon UK. It’s only a matter of time. They just upped the minimum free shipping to $35. You know they know Canadians consider Amazon Canada overpriced and inferior and Prime Video would only help them. The thing is, can/would Rogers/Shaw just sell over the shows to Amazon? They’d recover some of the loss but they aren’t always known for doing things like that.

HBO and Showtime are much longer, depending on how long the recent deals with Bell are but eventually I don’t think they’d renew it rather than just stream directly to Canada themselves. The only funny bit is Bosch being an Amazon show on CraveTV somehow; though I believe Netflix officially launched in Australia while a local channel had Orange is the New Black and they just waited out the contract before putting it on Netflix Australia, so something like that could happen perhaps. —DanAmazing

 

Got a question or comment about Canadian TV? Email greg.david@tv-eh.com or via Twitter @tv_eh.

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Mohawk Girls

Mohawk Girls, Season Four debuts Tuesday, October 25 on APTN

From a media release:

APTN’s (Aboriginal Peoples Television Network) critically-acclaimed and award-winning dramatic comedy Mohawk Girls returns for season four. The show takes a comedic look at the lives of four modern-day women trying to stay true to their roots while navigating sex, work, love and what it means to be Mohawk in the 21st century.

Filmed and set in Montreal and the Kahnawake Mohawk Territory, the eight-episode, fourth season of the half-hour dramedy premieres Tuesday, October 25 with weekly episodes airing on APTN E, and HD at 9:30 p.m. ET, APTN W at 9:30 p.m. MT and on APTN N on Sundays at 10:30 p.m. CT (premiering on Oct. 30).

Viewers can venture deeper into the world of Mohawk Girls via the interactive website, with a quiz app, behind-the-scenes secrets and entertaining graphic content. The devoted online community of the series can connect via Facebook, Instagram, Twitter and Tumblr .

This season, the girls are pushed further out of their comfort zones as they deal with interracial dating, politics, wedding planning, love triangles, career aspirations, all as they try to forge their own identities in a community embedded with rules and cultural traditions.

The dynamic cast of four leading women includes returning cast members Jenny Pudavick (Bailey), Brittany LeBorgne (Zoe), Heather White (Caitlin), and Maika Harper (Anna).  Meegwun Fairbrother (Butterhead), Kyle Nobess (Thunder), Jimmy Blais (Watio) and Shawn Youngchief (Ohserase), reprise their roles as the men they love. Also returning, Tantoo Cardinal as Zoe’s mom, Glen Gould as Bailey’s father and Jeffrey Wetsch as James. New this year is Dwain Murphy, who takes over the role of Leon.

The series was nominated for 4 Canadian Screen Awards this spring, including Best Comedy Series, Best Direction in a Comedy Program or Series, Best Writing in a Comedy Program or Series, and Best Performance by an Actress in a Continuing Comedic Role (Brittany LeBorgne). It has several awards to its name, including a Golden Sheaf Award in the Comedy category at the Yorkton Film Festival, the APTN Award at the Festival Présence Autochtone (Montreal First Peoples’ Festival) and a nomination for Best Sitcom at the Banff Rockie Awards. Spafax has licensed several episodes of the show, airing them on the Comedy TV channel on Air Canada enRoute Inflight Entertainment on domestic and international flights. US distributor GRB represents the show worldwide and Mohawk Girls debuted in Australia on the SBS network in June.

Mohawk Girls is created and executive produced by Tracey Deer and Cynthia Knight; Tracey Deer directs the episodes and Cynthia Knight is the head writer. The series is produced by Rezolution Pictures’ Catherine Bainbridge, Christina Fon and Linda Ludwick, and executive produced by Catherine Bainbridge, Christina Fon, Linda Ludwick and Ernest Webb. Innovate By Day is the Digital Media Producer. Monika Ille is the Executive Director, Programming and Scheduling for APTN.

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Featured, Reality, Lifestyle & Documentary

Wild Archaeology: Innuvialuit—A Race Against Climate Change

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This week on Wild Archaeology, Jenifer and Jacob are off on their own to experience salvage archaeology, without the supervision of Dr. Rudy. On this adventure, we are travelling to the far north where climate change is creating a desperate situation for archaeologists. Shorelines are facing accelerated erosion due to rising seas and rising temperatures resulting in a loss of artifacts to the sea.

Our duo travels to the Kuukpak dig site on Richards Island, north of Inuvik, on the Beaufort Sea where the Innuvialuit people would traditionally summer while hunting for beluga whale and store the meat, returning throughout the year. We learn the island was at one time covered in a series of camps and was a thriving summer community centuries ago.

The Innuvialuit people had no written history, and this is truly an example of traditional knowledge being rooted to the land. The land, because of climate change, has been forced to reveal the knowledge it held for centuries. If archaeologists fail in their mission to gather all of the artifacts, that knowledge will be lost forever.

In the initial site tour by Dr. Max Friesen, archaeologist at the University of Toronto, Jenifer spotted an ancient snow knife exposed by erosion. Continuing along the shore, ancient beluga bones were seen exposed and came across an old dog sled runner fashioned from bone and a number of ulu blades. Dr. Friesen estimates many of these finds are up to 500 years old.

I spoke briefly with Jacob on Tuesday, and he had this to share about his experiences on the show:

“I really loved the opportunity to work on this show and I learned a great deal throughout our travels. I have a new understanding of our natural history and discovered how scientists are in fact starting to tell stories that are parallel to those First Nation and Inuit people have been telling for a long time. The show is educational, but it was also an amazing adventure that I hope we can continue in the future.”

Jacob, I really hope your adventure does continue. This show is an absolute delight and I am so happy I decided to cover it.

Artifact tally tonight? Jacob: a rare, intact Innuvialuit arrowhead and a dog sled runner made from bone. Jenifer: a bi-face end scraper. Seems like Jacob is now in the lead.

Wild Archaeology airs Tuesdays at 7:30 p.m. ET on APTN.

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