Grand Portage begins by following National Park Rangers who are “historical interpre- ters”, at the Grand Portage National Monument (GPNM) on the Grand Portage Reser- vation situated on the Canada/USborder. Starting as a meditation on the possibility of history while foregrounding local Ojibwe tribal narratives, the film traces ignored, forgotten or buried Métis and Two-Spirit histories around Lake Superior that challenge and inform the dominant Western colonial versions of fur trade history. Drawing from GPNM and its attempt at historical recreation, so too do the characters point toward a pathos and aesthetic of imperfection in historical recreation and reenactment. At once about history at large and specific histories of the regions and peoples, Grand Portage moves by engaging the ways in which history is made in the present. As the characters depart from Minnesota to move northwest along historic canoe wa- terways, so do the simple distinctions between present and past, fiction and nonfic- tion, historical character and personage.
Julia Pello
