Sixty Below is an examination of what it means to be Indigenous in today’s Yukon, indeed throughout Canada.
Indigenous peoples have suffered colonization for hundreds of years. Loss of language, loss of identity, loss of control. Yet we survive. We are still here.
This audio play asks you to confront the losses and embrace hope with its characters.
This story explores effects of colonization on Indigenous people in today’s Yukon, Canada, along with our survival and resilience. For a content warning click here.
About Sixty Below
In this audio play, it’s nearly winter solstice when Henry, an Indigenous man in northern Canada, gets out of jail, ready to straighten out his life. Of course it’s not that easy: his old buddies just want to party, his girlfriend Rosie is moving ahead of him, and then there’s the ghost of Johnnie, everyone’s hero, who just won’t leave the northern lights.
While Henry and Rosie want to move forward in a good way, they do not have the tools to do it successfully. Their family, friends and community are sometimes more hindrance than help. And the unexplained death of their hero figure a year earlier makes it even harder.
Hope is introduced through their First Nation Gwich’in stories, pan-Indian teachings, and through the truth of how Johnnie died on the longest night of the year.
Sixty Below was co-written by Leonard Linklater and Patti Flather as a stage play and was first produced in 1993. Unfortunately not enough has changed and this digital theatre production, adapted by Leonard Linklater, is still incredibly relevant.
The audio play, with some short film clips, has been divided into three episodes.
Sixty Below explores ongoing traumatic effects of colonization on Indigenous people in today’s Yukon, and across Canada. This includes residential schools, intergenerational trauma, substance use, physical assault, and suicide.