Educational Media Reviews Online

Delores Churchill pulls up roots with her daughter and granddaughter—they cut, twist, and weave nature’s bounty into baskets, conveying their native culture’s generational power of the practice of art and crafts. Churchill, an ebullient Haida elder who lives in Northern Canada, learned basket weaving from her mother. Indigenous peoples have long been known for their magnificent baskets, and Tracing Roots entwines many threads to tell an enthralling story about Churchill, an ebullient master weaver, teacher, folklorist, advocate, and art historian.

The film opens with the fascinating story of the archeological find in the Canadian glaciers of the mummified remains of an approximately 300 year-old man. Kwäday Dän Ts’ìnchi, also known as “Long Ago Person.” He was wearing a spruce root hat that remarkably was found intact. Director Ellen Frankenstein accompanies Churchill on a quest to see the hat to learn about the Long Ago Person’s culture. Although they aren’t allowed to see the hat, they are privy to a sketch of it, and Churchill studies and recreates it.

Compelling narration and interviews, lush cinematography of the Canadian snow-covered mountains, and Tom Disher’s mellifluent music create an atmospheric, inspiring, and beautiful documentary about tradition, nature, connection to the earth, and the decorative and functional art of basket-weaving. The film itself is as alluring and educational an artifact as a basket or Long Ago Person’s hat.