CTVA
The Classic TV Archive - Canadian Series
Spirit Bay (1983-87) -
The Rez (1996)
Spirit Bay (1983-87)
Episode Guide compiled by The Classic TV Archive
with contributions by: Clayton Self
Spirit Bay Fan Site (Clayton Self)
references:
TV Guide / Library of Congress (telnet://locis.loc.gov)
Internet Movie Database (https://us.imdb.com)
UCLA Film and Television Archive /
Writers Guild of America (wga)
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SPIRIT BAY
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Spirit Bay was an aboriginal family television show of 13 episodes that aired on CBC Television and
TVOntario from 1983 to 1987.
Canadian Family Adventure Series 1983-87 13 episodes
The show focuses on life in an Ojibwe reservation town in Northern Ontario. It
set the stage for all other
native Canadian programming thereafter, and paved the way for many famous first
nations, Canadian actors like:
Graham Greene as Pete "Baba"
Tom Jackson as Will
Tantoo Cardinal as Rabbit's foster mother Annie
Gary Farmer as Hack's uncle Cheemo
Shirley Cheechoo as Mavis and Tafia's mother
Monique Mojica as Hack's mother Gloria
Margo Kane as the school teacher
Colleen Loucks as Aunt Lily
Ron Cook as Baba Shigobo
Blake Debassige
Elder aboriginal actor George Clutesi (playing Old Bernard) appeared in a few
episodes.
In one memorable episode he helps the community deal with the white man's
upsetting of a 500 year old
native burial ground.
Elder female actress Gladys Taylor (playing Teawash) also appears.
One of the child stars of the show was Trevor Smith, who played Rabbit, a young
teen who comes from the city.
(In addition to acting in The Rez and Cheaper by the Dozen 2, Smith later
appeared on the reality television
series U8TV: The Lofters and is now an animal control officer and media
spokesperson for the Toronto Humane Society).
Other child actors on the show included:
Cynthia Debassige as Tafia
Diane Debassige as Mavis
Lance Migwans as Hack
Eugene Thompson as Minnow
Liz Haldane as Lenore
Mark Bruder as Elton
Other child characters included: Tonka (Elton's brother) and Rose (a young teen
who helps the kids in a
winter bus accident by using her survival know-how).
The theme song was penned by Canadian music and acting legend Buffy Sainte
Marie.
The show was shot on location in MacDiarmid, Ontario on Lake Nipigon at the
Rocky Bay First Nation.
Spirit Bay Fan Site (Clayton Self)
################# Spirit Bay #################
################## 1983-86 ###################
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1.1 [--] Spirit Bay: A TIME TO BE BRAVE
[Pilot Episode]
Tafia has to overcome her fear of trains to help her father survive in the
dead of winter at their
trapper's cabin deep in the woods. [CS]
1.x [--] Spirit Bay: DANCING FEATHERS
(1983)
Tafia is taken to Toronto for the annual pow wow festival. [RF]
1.x [--] Spirit Bay: CIRCLE OF LIFE (1984)
The kids find a native skeleton on an island. When a museum comes and take the
bones to Thunder Bay
the community is outraged, yet they find a way to bring them back for a proper
ceremonial burial. [CS]
1.x [--] Spirit Bay: RABBIT GOES FISHING
(1984)
Synopsis 1:
Rabbit takes a boat out too far. [CS]
Synopsis 2:
Ralph, a young orphan from the city is unfriendly when he arrives in Spirit Bay.
Cheemo learns about the
boy's false bravado that stems from his fear of rejection and convinces him he
is at home with his people. [CS]
1.x [--] Spirit Bay: THE BLUEBERRY BICYCLE
(1985)
Elton uses his money to get spare parts for his bike from elder Teawash, and by
doing so learns a
valuable lesson in the town's bike race. [CS]
1.x [--] Spirit Bay: RABBIT PULLS HIS WEIGHT
(1985)
Rabbit literally pulls his weight when he helps out a pilot whose plane has
crashed. [CS]
1.x [--] Spirit Bay: THE PRIDE OF SPIRIT BAY
(1985)
Tafia learns the value of true art from her elders. [CS]
1.x [--] Spirit Bay: BIG SAVE (1985)
Spirit Bay's broomball team gets stranded in a blizzard and Rose has to use her
survival know-how
to save the kids. [CS]
1.x [--] Spirit Bay: A REAL KID _aka_
BREAK-IN (1986)
Rabbit finds out that his foster mother, Annie, is pregnant, and he runs away
for fear he will be ignored. [CS]
1.x [--] Spirit Bay: HACK'S CHOICE
(1986)
Hack's uncle comes back to Spirit Bay to try to weasel him out of his father's
medicine bag so he can
sell it to collectors. [CS]
1.x [--] Spirit Bay: WATER MAGIC (1986)
Synopsis 1:
Rabbit and Hack make a dangerous journey when they believe they have jinxed
Cheemo's fishing trip. [CS]
Synopsis 2:
Cheemo, the fisherman, must pay $1500 by the end of the week, or lose his boat.
Teawash, the wise old woman,
warns him and his helpers to remember to leave something for the Memagwasis-the
little people. The boys
ridicule Teawash, and later scoff when Cheemo gives back fish to the spirit of
the lake Rabbit and Hack
make a dangerous journey when they believe they have jinxed Cheemo's fishing
trip. [CS]
1.x [--] Spirit Bay: WORDS ON A PAGE (1987)
Lenore writes a story that could win her a scholarship in the city, but her
father is reluctant to
let her enter it in a contest. [CS]
1.x [--] Spirit Bay: HOT NEWS (1987)
Mavis and her cousin Mary want to write an article about an old Indian recipe,
but end up fighting with
one another in their canoe while a dangerous forest fire lingers nearby. [CS]
################# Spirit Bay ################
################## the end #################
##############################################
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