Big Soul scores a hit on APTN

ALISON BLACKDUCK

IQALUIT — The producers of APTN’s Seventh Generation think success is the sweetest revenge.

“We asked Ford to sponsor our first season and they said ‘No,’” says Jennifer Podemski, the show’s host and one of its two producers. “The woman I met with told me that Ford wasn’t interested because native people don’t have enough money to buy their products.

“And I thought ‘Have you been to an Indian reserve? You should see how many people are driving new Ford Explorers.’”

The Seventh Generation is one of the most dynamic, fast-paced half hours of television programming on APTN.

Each week, Podemski, and her co-producer and good friend, Laura Milliken, introduce viewers to some of the most promising and inspired young indigenous people working in Canada.

It debuted on APTN last year after Podemski and Milliken incorporated Big Soul Productions in August 1999.

Since then, the show has been renewed by APTN for a second season, and Podemski’s work as the show’s host earned her a Gemini nomination this year.

Last weekend, Podemski and Milliken were in Iqaluit producing a profile of Inuk performer, musician and television producer Sylvia Cloutier.

“I know Jen’s sister Tamara. We danced together in Banff at an aboriginal dance workshop a few years ago,” Cloutier, 25, says.

“Initially, they wanted to profile my brother Eric because he’s a pilot,” Cloutier says. “But they decided to profile me, too, after I bumped into Laura in Toronto last March on Queen Street West.

“I told Laura to say hi to Jen for me and it went from there.”

Cloutier says she was a fan of the show even before Podemski and Milliken asked to profile her.

“I know a lot of people who watch the show… It’s one of my favourites on APTN,” Cloutier says. “It’s creative, eye-catching, and there’s a lot of energy, which is good for somebody with a short attention-span… And it’s good that they want to involve Inuit.”

Cloutier says she was thrilled that Podemski and Milliken travelled to Iqaluit to film her, but admits she found the two-day shoot nerve-wracking.

“I was trying to be humble — I’m used to being behind the camera — and I didn’t want to seem like a show-off,” she says. “I’m not in front of the camera unless I’m performing.”

Podemski and Milliken say they decided to profile Cloutier because she’s such an accomplished woman.

However, they say they’re not just interested in highly visible figures like Cloutier.
“We were in Moose Factory (in Northern Ontario) to profile somebody who was pretty well known,” Milliken says. “And when we were wandering around, doing some shopping, we noticed all this beautiful hand-made furniture which had been made in the community.”

“I looked at Jen and told her that we had to find out who made it.”

It turned out that the furniture’s maker was a young Cree man whose entrepreneurial enterprise was a source of both local pride and local employment.

The women decided on the spot that the man had to be featured on their show.
“Aboriginal youth are the fastest growing population in Canada, yet the media treats them like an inconsequential niche market,” Podemski says.

“The stories we tell aren’t only about the amazing things young aboriginal people are doing, they’re about the amazing things young people are doing — anybody, aboriginal or non-aboriginal, would find the people on our show inspiring.”

Other Inuit who’ve been featured on the Seventh Generation are musician Lucie Idlout, PhD candidate Thomas Hadlari, entrepreneur Charlie Watt Jr., Harvard-educated physician Danika Edmonds and pilot Eric Cloutier.