Miss Campbell: Inuk Teacher

To Heather Campbell, her grandmother was a teacher, a matriarch and a beloved family member, but to everyone else in the small community of Rigolet, Labrador, she was a force of nature otherwise known as Miss Campbell.

Part oral history and part visual poem, Miss Campbell: Inuk Teacher combines Heather’s exquisite water colour paintings of narwhals, polar bears, seals and birds with home movies, family photos and lively animation to capture the spirit of this extraordinary woman for her documentary portrait.

From a young age, Evelyn Campbell possessed a keen sense of justice. At residential school, she helped her fellow students study and pass exams, an experience that forged her desire to be a teacher. As one of the first Indigenous educators in the public school system in the country, she wanted to instill a sense of pride in her students, teach them about their culture and break the cycle of stigma and trauma that she herself had suffered at residential school. “She knew that all of the kids in this town were smart,” explains her granddaughter Heather. “She knew that we could succeed.”

As a trailblazer for an Inuit-led educational system, Evelyn was the only teacher in a one-room school, teaching grades K–12. Although she had inherited the methodologies of earlier educators, her motivation was entirely different. In a career that spanned more than 35 years, she embraced her Inuit heritage and shared her passion for learning through music and stories. In 1986, Evelyn Campbell was awarded the Order of Canada.

Recreating not only the events of a life, but also the spare beauty of the landscape in fluid, free-flowing images that embody traditional knowledge passed on from generation to generation, Miss Campbell: Inuk Teacher is a loving testimony to the ability of one person to help shape an entire community.