This
evocative film is a tribute to both the pioneering and Native American women
in the West at the turn of the last century. Their stories offer glimpses of
everyday life, and help recover the historical contributions of women. Striking
images of the landscape are woven together with historical photographs and re-enactments
of women's daily activities, and an unforgettable musical score. The women and girls who cooked, cleaned, taught, did laundry and milked the cows endured unbelievable hardships. In Jana Harris' story "Cattle-Killing Winter" a settler woman describes the terrible blizzard that hit in the winter of 1889-90. In a particularly poignant story, a mother tries to teach her eldest daughter how to run the household as they lie buried in an avalanche.
In another segment of the film, Mourning Dove of the Colville tribe writes "My birth happened in the year 1888...I was born long enough ago to have known people who had lived in the ancient way, before everything started to change." While describing her love of the summer gathering expeditions, she also conveys her experience in a residential Indian school. Acclaimed Canadian poet Jeannette Armstrong of the Penticton Indian Band takes us on a berry picking expedition with three generations of Okanagan women.
