Across the Lake: A Documentary Lecture

Across the Lake is a transdisciplinary research project that blends film and lecture into a unique hybrid form. The project combines a short experimental documentary with a narrative lecture that integrates maps, photographs, and storytelling, creating a feature-length presentation. Rooted in multigenerational research, the work draws on family photo albums, colonial archives, and historical records to craft a counter-narrative to dominant histories. Through this fusion of media, Across the Lake explores themes of international borders, Indigeneity, language, ecological heritage, and the lived experiences of navigating colonial constructs of citizenship and nationhood, bringing these topics into dialogue through film, maps, and photographs.

Across the Lake is not a comprehensive history of the Gunflint Trail, but rather one story within a larger narrative. It represents the lineage of a single person, part of a vast family history that stretches across generations. While this story is deeply personal, it is also a fragment of many others, each contributing to the broader tapestry of history and experience.