SHIFT

I am a Yukoner. I grew up here and the land is in my blood. So in 1996, after finishing an undergraduate in Journalism, I headed back home to work in the northern television industry. It was a historic time in the Yukon. First Nations had just started settling land claim agreements and the whole structure for how the territory was going to work and engage with the new First Nation governments was a blank page with unlimited opportunity. I remember an elder talking about what the settlement of land claims meant to them. He said, “It’s not about walking down the path one behind the other any more, but walking side by side together.”

That’s what SHIFT is about.

My husband and I bought a piece of property in Carcross at the base of the trail system on Montana Mountain about five years ago. Every morning I’d see the kids from the trail crew heading off to work with their gear and I was impressed by their enthusiasm and dedication to what I know is a tough job. Over time I got to know the kids and saw what trail building program and mountain biking in general was doing for them, their community, and the Yukon as a whole, and kept saying, “someone needs to tell this story...” Finally one of my old friends from journalism school said, “why don’t you do it?” It felt like a dare and it started a ball rolling on SHIFT.

This film is more than a bike movie. It’s about how land claim agreements are empowering First Nations and what one First Nation has done with that opportunity. It’s also a film about change – and change is hard. But change is also inevitable and SHIFT is about the benefits of being an active participant in the change around you. It’s also a film about hope – and hope can be powerful. But at its core, SHIFT is a film about mountain biking because mountain biking…well…it’s just a lot of fun.

I’m proud of the fact that SHIFT is a full Yukon production. Sometimes we get the feeling that we are such a small place that we can’t do things as well as people from “outside”. Yukoners had a hand in every part of SHIFT: from the filming, to the original soundtrack, to the colour correct and animations. I think it demonstrates what we – as small and remote as we are – can do and why it is so important to tell our own stories through a northern lens.

I hope SHIFT makes a difference. I wanted to tell this story in a way that gave the kids on the trail crew a voice and an opportunity to show why the work they do is so important to them. It’s to tell the story to inspire people from outside of the Yukon – but it is also a film for the Carcross community as not everyone understands what the trail crew is doing up on the mountain all day. The First Nation still struggles internally with the idea of building bike trails on their land and every year there is uncertainty around the program. My hope is that this film will help make things easier for the kids on the crew and the people behind the scenes trying to make it happen. And I hope it inspires a few mountain bikers to make the trip up to Carcross and check out the world-class trails these kids have built.