This is the second in a series with Ryan McMahon and Wendell Collier about their CBC Gem series “Stories from the Land,” an adaptation of McMahon’s podcast which premiered on the digital streaming platform Friday, March 19.
When a worldwide pandemic hits right when you’re about to start filming your documentary series, the only thing to do is to regroup, stay safe and do your best.
In the case of “Stories from the Land,” the docu-series adapted from Ryan McMahon’s podcast of the same name that made its premiere on CBC Gem last week, “your best” is pretty darn good.
McMahon, along with longtime friend and series producer Wendell Collier, shared that the world began to close down right as they were ramping up to begin filming the series in northern Quebec, which led to them taking a step back to assess the situation and how they could proceed. That in turned helped push the direction of the series closer to home.
“We were supposed to go to camera on March 21, 2020, and of course the week of the 16th in March of last year, the world hit the big ‘pause’ button,” Collier recalled.
“So we followed suit. We hit pause on what was supposed to be our foray into shooting a series. Our first episode was supposed to be shot in Nunavik in northern Quebec. When the barricades went up, and the Montreal airport had RCMP officers standing at the gate to make sure nobody went into the north, I looked at Ryan and said ‘I think we might need to go somewhere else.’ One of the things we figured out really quickly, we said ‘where do we have access to a lot of resources and a lot of stories?’ And all of those factors pointed us back home to the Rainy River district, back to Fort Frances and back onto Rainy Lake.”
McMahon and Collier both have plenty of family in the area, and are connected to the larger communities that they hail from, which meant plenty of access to the things that are needed to film a documentary series of any size. While both men needed to find new angles and stories to film in the COVID-caused ruins of their original plans, their familiarity with the area meant that it was not an insurmountable obstacle, and they were helped along by those around them.
“Listen, there really is nothing like going home,” Collier said.
“People rally around you. It was so amazing to see so many people from the community say, ‘what do you need?’ Well, we need some trailers for the crew. ‘Here you go, here’s trailers.’ People really just rallied behind us and help get production off the ground.”
It’s at this point that McMahon interrupted, unwilling to let more time go by as Collier gave credit where it was due but kept none for himself. For as much as the community pitched in to help the production crew, McMahon gave Collier plenty of credit of his own for accomplishing a Sisyphean feat.
“We didn’t have a plan, then we did have a plan, and that was Wendell as a producer going, ‘We’ve pushed this boulder uphill this far, I’m not letting it roll back on us.'” McMahon said.
“He stepped in and he got some acreage where we could isolate ourselves from the rest of the world. We were coming in from outside, we didn’t want anyone to be nervous about us being there.”
In order to keep both the crew and the surrounding communities as safe as possible, the production stayed out on a four-acre farm to stay well isolated from anyone they would be coming into contact with during the shoots. Safety was such a focus during production that McMahon feels they may have set the standard for working through the pandemic, at least in Canada.
“I think this is true, we were the first Indigenous production company out in the field this past summer, and I think maybe one of the first in Canada,” he said.
“Everything we were doing in terms of our plan we were forwarding off to the broadcaster, and they were like ‘can we share this?’ Wendell, through his vision and work, I think helped really create some of the industry standard in the early days. he had pre-ordered PPE and sourced this stuff for us to go into the field. So by the time we got in the field we had six different layers of protocol, laws and legislations over us; federal, provincial, municipal, industry standards, broadcaster standards and then company standards, never mind our own autonomous ways we wanted to keep ourselves safe. We were well governed in the field.”
From being well governed from a safety standpoint to being supported by their friends, family and communities, it’s clear that the documentary series as it is now is as much an accomplishment of hard work from McMahon and Collier, and also the result of the community that was there to help them achieve their goals.
“Locally there was so much support and so many good people stepped forward to help see this through,” McMahon said.
“This is the way we were able to support this documentary series; just with a lot of love and community support.”
“It could not have been done without everybody’s help,” Collier added.
“I would definitely single out my dad and mom, they really stepped up, dad being the camp manager and mom making us boxed lunches every day and kind of being our health support on staff. That’s also what’s awesome about it, to be able to come home and create that stuff and have your families be involved steps it up to another level. I do this all the time, I don’t get to be up on a shoot with my dad. Ryan doesn’t get to be up on a shoot with his dad everyday. It’s also fun because they go, ‘oh, this is what you guys do.’ It’s a fun little window into our worlds as well.
Next week, McMahon and Collier talk about the episodes that make up the first season of their series, and how the people they interacted with at their filming locations changed the stories they wanted to tell.