Video Resources

On this page, video resources can be found to further understanding of the implications of hydropower on people and the environment.

In Our Backyard: Keeyask and the Legacy of Hydroelectric Development 

Editors Aimée Craft and Jill Blakley celebrate the launch of In Our Backyard: Keeyask and the Legacy of Hydroelectric Development (University of Manitoba Press). This event features a presentation from Robert Spence, elected councillor of the Tataskweyak Cree Nation. 

Beginning with the Grand Rapids Dam in the 1960s, hydroelectric development has dramatically altered the social, political, and physical landscape of northern Manitoba. In Our Backyard tells the story of Manitoba Hydro’s Keeyask dam and accompanying development on the Nelson River, amplifying Indigenous voices that environmental assessment and regulatory processes have often failed to incorporate.

Additional Films

ONE RIVER MANY RELATIONS

This film explores the Athabasca Oil Sands from a marginalized and often silenced perspective: Communities that live downstream. It is is a collaborative community effort featuring interviews with local Cree, Dene and Métis members from Fort Chipewyan. It gets to the heart of their concerns for their families, traditional ways and territories as the Oil Sands encroach closer and closer.

KEWEKAPAWETAN: RETURN AFTER THE FLOOD

In this documentary directed by Jennifer Dysart, a Cree community in northern Manitoba returns to their original village site that they were forced to abandon due to the purposeful flooding of their lake.

FOR LOVE OF A RIVER: TWO STORIES OF LOSS AND LONGING

When the water goes up behind the $8.7-billion Keeyask Dam in northern Manitoba, one family will lose more than any other. This short documentary, filmed by Brad Leitch, combines their story with the story of Ellen Cook who grew up in the shadow of another dam and imagines a future beyond concrete.

GREEN, GREEN WATER

In Green Green Water, Dawn Mikkelson digs deep to discover the true costs of the source of her green energy. Mikkelson uncovers the displacement, environmental damage and social unrest caused by hydroelectric energy suppliers.