A National Film Board of Canada production

In this intimate portrait that blends archival footage and dreamlike reenactments, the family of Edouard Beaupré—also known as “the Willow Bunch Giant”—takes back ownership of his story. Beaupré’s great-grandniece Jessie Ray Short retraces the Giant’s journey from his hometown in Saskatchewan to his tragic death at the St. Louis World’s Fair, and his body’s bizarre posthumous voyage. But the film is above all an act of healing in which his loved ones share emotional memories and stories, seeking to restore his identity and reclaim his Michif heritage. 

In an act of remembrance and healing, the family of Edouard Beaupré, a.k.a. “the Willow Bunch Giant,” tells his story and restores his dignity. 

Where did the idea for this film come from? Was there a specific personal or artistic spark?  

I had the opportunity to work with some francophone Indigenous artists/curators (Guy Sioui Durand, France Trépanier, Nadia Myre) in Quebec in 2012–2014, and for some reason, I can’t remember why exactly, the subject of Edouard Beaupré, or “le géant Beaupré,” came up. They all knew who he was, which surprised me. I surprised them by telling them he was my relative. Basically, they explained that there was the Beau Dommage song from the 1970s (I think) that mentions him, and that they all thought he was a French man from Quebec. They were very surprised to learn he was born and raised in Western Canada and that he was also Indigenous. This made me realize that the story I thought was just some small, family thing had a whole life outside of us. The more I looked into it as an adult, the more I realized how generally poorly told his story was, and it made me want to create a family narrative to remember him by. I always knew I wanted the story to be about the man and not the spectacle of his life and death.
 

Family memories are probably the most important sources for the account of Edouard Beaupré’s life and death. The film is part of an oral tradition in which his descendants have passed down stories about his life for generations. What was most important to you: the stories themselves or getting at some sort of truth? Is finding the truth even possible after so many years? Is it important? 

It’s hard, especially at this removed point in time, to separate the stories from the truth, and I think sometimes one informs the other. I don’t believe in objectivity, even in the scientific sense. The observer will always have some sliver of their self in the story, no matter how hard they strive for an “objective truth.” That being said, we can look at events we know to be true and move out from there. We know Edouard was born, we know he died, we know his body was kept in a glass case for decades and we know he was finally buried in 1990. I look at these events and try to match them to the stories I’ve heard—or imagined from my own research, when the exact story isn’t accessible—or I try to understand why the stories might have been told the way they were if they don’t match the events particularly well. There’s a thread of some kind of truth that runs through all these stories with the goal of moving us, those who care, Edouard’s family, towards some kind of understanding. 

Few people know that Edouard Beaupré was of Michif descent. Yet your own research has explored this facet of his identity in detail, and in an interview, you described it as an act of reclaiming ownership. How did you approach this issue in the film? 

I wanted to present the Michif ancestry of my family and, by proxy, Edouard’s family, as a non-issue. It just is. It’s a part of us, just like it’s a part of him, and like any culture, it’s hard to separate out whether you do something a certain way because it’s a “Michif” way of doing it or because it’s “your” way of doing it. I wasn’t looking to explain what Michif people do or how they are, rather I just presented a Michif family exploring the story of their ancestor in the way that we do, with some significant symbolic gestures that may or may not be obvious to everyone.  

Why did you choose to tell the story in French? 

French is a part of my family’s history and a part of Edouard’s lineage; along with Michif, French is another part of the story. I’m so lucky to have learned French as a young adult, as the story would have only been half as rich had I worked exclusively in English, my first language. I had no idea when I was learning French that it would serve me so well in my future creative work.  

The film is very moving. The story of how Edouard’s body was exploited is heart-wrenching. Did you expect the family to be so emotional? Was the film cathartic for them? For you? 

I was surprised that everyone was so emotional, and it surprised them, too. My dad was totally surprised by the tears when he talked about the funeral, and he later told me he had no idea where they’d come from. I was also surprised each time I cried during the film; it seemed to come out of nowhere. I’m not sure if it was immediately cathartic, but I think it will be over time, as we get to talk about the whole experience more. I’ve heard people talk about intergenerational trauma and blood memory, and I wonder if it’s something like this. These feelings, this apparent sadness, has been held across generations, but there was no relief until Edouard was actually buried in 1990, and then again when we got to make this film and finally reflect on everything that had happened until this point. Of course, the people who directly experienced his death are long gone and never got to cry those tears of relief because they never got to bury him or tell his story in such a public way. So it’s up to us now. We get to do all these healing actions, so the tears come to us after decades. We feel this lost pain that’s been wandering for generations.