The Loon's Necklace

This short 16 mm film was part of a series made by Crawley Films and the NFB. It was standard "showing" in elementary schools of the Protestant School Commission of Greater Montreal. I have never forgotten it, particularly the "cry" of the loon. Because of this movie, I am certain no one of my generation was ignorant of why the 'loon' was stamped on our $1.00 coin. Today's students don't know why the loon is there at all. We also all remember that the story of the "necklace" is an Indian Tale, and tell-tale of the beautiful markings of this bird which might look like a duck, but doesn't sound like one! The film is respectful of Indian legend. In my Montreal world of the 40's and 50's children were not raised with any prejudice against aboriginal people, and I remember going to a theatre in Westmount to hear a talk by "Chief Poking Fire" (who was, I suppose, comparable to the West Coast's "Chief Dan George").

I first saw this in school when I was about 10 (1957). Since I was the class projectionist (who knows how I got that), I may have seen it more than one time that year, but surely not so many times that anything except the film's perfection could have kept it so clearly in my memory that when I saw it next, twenty years later, it was exactly as I recalled.

In brief, the movie is the legend of how the loon came to have a necklace, told almost entirely with native carved masks. These masks were so beautiful and expressive that they have forever influenced the way that I view masks of any sort.