Laura Power
Northern News Services
Published Monday, August 13, 2007

YELLOWKNIFE - Filmmaker Becky Bristow is bringing her latest film, Dog Gone Addiction, to the NWT.

She said she believes the audience in Northwest Territories will enjoy the film, which follows three women during the Yukon Quest, a 1,000 mile-long dogsled race.

Becky Bristow is bringing her latest documentary to Northwest Territories in the coming weeks for two showings. - photo courtesy of Carsten Thies

Bristow, of Revelstoke, BC, spent some time in Yukon in the winter of 2004 where she single-handedly filmed the journey of these women.

"I wanted to make a film that was inspiring to other women, and I just found out about Michelle Phillips running the quest that year," she said. "She was inspiring to me so I went up there and I was going to shoot her running the race and training and gearing up for the race."

She met two other women, Agata Franczak and Kelley Griffin, who also fit in with her plans. Franczak is a Polish woman who moved to Canada to run dogs, and Griffin is a mushing veteran.

"I wanted to get her perspective having had run it several times before," she said of Griffin.

She filmed the documentary during February 2004. The filming took about 13 days - the time it took for the women to finish the race, which began in Fairbanks and ended in Whitehorse.

"No one's ever done it in less than 10 days and then some people take up to 16," she said.

This is Bristow's second film, which she made under the name of her documentary production company, Wild Soul Creations. The first was an adventure documentary filmed in Russia, which won her several awards including the best independent film award at the Rossland Film Festival in 2004.

Dog Gone Addiction was the runner up in the Wanaka Mountain Film Festival.

During her time in Northwest Territories in the upcoming weeks, Bristow will show Dog Gone Addiction in Yellowknife and in Fort Smith.

She said she chose Yellowknife as one of her stops because the Dogsled Symposium will be going on.

"It's really fun for me to show this film to that crowd because they seem to appreciate it and understand it," she said. "I wanted to show it to that crowd, and I also have never been to the NWT at all and I wanted to see it."

She plans on paddling on the Slave River while she is in Fort Smith.

The Yellowknife screening will take place on Friday, Aug. 17 at the Explorer Hotel, and the Fort Smith showing will take place at the Northern Life Museum on Tuesday, Aug. 21.