The Story Behind 'Keepers Of The Land'

Roy L Hales/ Cortes Currents - The audio version version of this story begins with a solitary male voice raised in a seemingly ageless First Nations chant. Then Doug Neasloss, elected chief counselor of the Kittisoo Xia Xias First Nation, states, “We’ve always had the responsibility to steward, that’s what we are doing.” The clip was taken from Deirdre Leowinata and Tavish Campbell’s documentary ‘Keepers of the Land.’ They spent two years working with the Kitasoo Xai Xais in Klemtu, more than 350 miles north of Cortes and Quadra Islands.


Deidre explained, “It’s one of these really magical places where they still  have some resources that they have historically used for a lot of their cultural practices and  for the food that sustains their community. They're a remote community  of 350 people right now, and they're  pretty isolated from the rest of the world. They really heavily rely on the natural resources around them to survive and to continue their cultural traditions.” 


In another clip, Vern Brown, a Kitasoo Xia Xias youth leader, stated,  “We really have to start advancing everything that we do. We need to do it better. We need to manage salmon better. We need to manage fisheries better. We need to manage the forest better. This is my home and this is my backyard. And we have a community full of KItasoo and Xia Xias people. Every one of those families within the community have particular chiefs and title all throughout the territory.” 


“There's a lot of things in the past that my grandparents couldn't have imagined today.  There's a lot of steps that we've taken as far as being a small little First Nations community in Canada. There's a lot of things that we've achieved by working together. That's one great thing about this community is that we can work together.”  


‘Keepers of the Land’ was a finalist at the Jackson Wild Media Awards and was given a Special Jury Mention at the 2023 Banff Mountain Film Festival.  

The Cortes Island Academy hosted a virtual screening on January 19, after which Manda Aufochs Gillespie emailed Cortes Currents:
“‘Keepers of the Land’ was incredible. The videography was beautiful and prescient and seemed so close that it felt as if I could reach out and touch the Spirit Bear, or the salmon swimming upstream. To think that these incredible film makers are in our very own backyard makes the story of their triumph even more spectacular.”

Deirdre Leowinata:  “I've lived on Sonora Island since 2020, but my partner, Tavish, who is our cinematographer, has lived on Sonora almost his whole life. That's why I ended up here. “


Manda Aufochs Gilespie email: “They also shared how each of them got their start in film making.  Tavish, like many small islanders, found his way into it very nontraditionally by starting as a commercial boat driver who got to know these lands and waters and people by living in and among them. Deirdre studied film/communications and ecology in university and it instilled in her a passion for story-telling. It was meaningful for the students to see different pathways into the career and to see the very skills they are learning put to work in such a powerful documentary.”


This film is one of Sierra Quadra’s winter 2023/2024 offerings and will be shown at the Quadra Community Centre at 7:20 PM on Saturday, February 3, 2024. Deirdre Leowinata and Tavish Campbell will be there to talk about their experience working with the Kitasoo Xia Xias First Nation and answer questions.


Cortes Currents: How did this film come into being?