First Nation runners from the 1967 Pan Am torch relay remember their teen-age years when they ran 800-km with the Games torch only to not be allowed into the Winnipeg Pan Am stadium. In 1999 they received an apology and finished the last part of their journey, 32 years later. Torchrunners looks at the tradition of running and how residential school survivors used that tradition to endure residential school. This is a film about endurance, forgiveness and celebrating culture.
First Nation runners from the 1967 Pan Am torch relay remember their teen-age years when they ran 800-km with the Games torch only to not be allowed into the Winnipeg Pan Am stadium. In 1999 they received an apology and finished the last part of their journey, 32 years later. Torchrunners looks at the tradition of running and how residential school survivors used that tradition to endure residential school. This is a film about endurance, forgiveness and celebrating culture.
Explore the tradition of sports in Indigenous communities in Canada. Research Tom Longboat, the most famous First Nations long-distance runner in this country. Why were these three young torchrunners denied the chance to enter the stadium for the 1967 Pan Am relay? How does their prominence in the Pan Am Games in 1999 provide closure for them? How does their inclusion in these Games act as a path towards reconciliation?
Torchrunners, Laura Robinson, provided by the National Film Board of Canada