Reserve is a piece of land that was given to us
by the government.
Just for Native people.
There was this thing that I was told by my father,
it was called the 500 Year War,
ever since the settlers came in the 1400's.
They would come and just tell us that,
"You live in this part of this land now and
we own the rest of this."
And that's when the war started between the
settlers and the Native people.
And we're still in it.
Yeah, that's right, I am the best. I am the best!
What the fuck is going on?
Canada, a country best known internationally for vast
unpopulated landscapes, overly polite citizens,
and the rapper Drake.
Less known is the contentious relationship
between the Indigenous First Nations and the
colonial forces of the Canadian government.
Beginning with the Indian Act of 1876,
First Nations were forced off of their traditional
territories and onto the reserve system.
These are small and often isolated parcels of land
still owned by the government.
Decades later and the system is still in place,
with nearly half of Canada's First Nations population
living on reserves.
Conditions on reserves remain so difficult that a
UN Indigenous rights investigator officially
described a state of crisis due to,
among many factors, a lack of infrastructure,
including drinking water and access to
education and healthcare.
You might be wondering what any of this
has to do with pro wrestling...
A few years ago, I saw footage of the
Canadian Wrestling Federation's Ice Road Wrestling Tour.
CWF is an independent promotion headed by
Frank Rickman, known by the ring name,
Kryss Thorn.
The company has carved out a niche in the business by
visiting the most remote Indigenous communities
in northern Quebec.
For reservations that are
isolated from outside entertainment,
the CWF is literally the only show in town.
I'm joining their summer tour to see firsthand
why this band of road warriors are continuously welcomed by
the communities they visit, and learn more about the
connection between wrestling in the Cree and Inuit
communities of the James Bay region.
We travel on the road, sometimes for 30 hours straight...
Show up at a show, there is no time to sleep.
We're setting the ring up, doing the show,
tearing down, and we're leaving for the next community.
We are the biggest traveling company in Canada;
nobody does more shows than us.
Last year we did 97 shows. I want to beat it this year.
People sometimes look at you, "Oh, he's loaded.
He's making a fortune off this."
And you're not. You really aren't.
I make a living. I'm far from being rich.
I think a real businessman would say,
"Screw this shit," and call it quits.
But me, it's like this is part of me and I'm gonna
continue to do what I do, regardless.
Maybe it's not the smartest business decisions in the world,
but, you know, this is what I do.
First stop, Waskaganish.
Waskaganish is a Cree community of over 2,200 people
on the southeast shore of James Bay in the
Istchee Territory in northern Quebec, Canada.
The community has only had road access since 2001,
and is over 14 hours by truck from Montreal.
- Hey, man. - Where's this guy going?
Ow! Oh, Jesus!
Ah! Ah!
Do it, do it. Ah!
The CWF crew doesn't waste any time.
Moments after arriving in town,
Frank has them loading into the hockey rink
to set up the ring.
Everybody that comes out, I watch them,
I look at them and I judge them;
they have to go by my rules.
Everybody helps put up the ring.
Look at this guy.
Only on camera.
You know, no drugs, no alcohol,
no hooking up with any of the girls in the community.
I've had guys come out on a tour and they've lasted
three days and flew themselves home.
Was it, like, custom built for you guys, because...?
Yeah. This was custom-built like 20-something years ago.
Okay.
The first day is always the hardest.
It gets boring just setting up the thing over and over.
Shadow Xtreme is a Cree wrestler from the
First Nation community of Pukatawagan.
He spent years training mainly in Winnipeg when
Frank and the CWF crew rolled through his community.
After an audition and a debut match,
Frank quickly signed him and gave him a seat in the van.
He's a crowd favourite in these communities.
Tony Caribou is an amateur stuntman,
a break dancer, and a parkour practitioner
now turned wrestler.
Also from Pukatawagan, he was first introduced to
the sport and the CWF by his uncle, Shadow,
and the pair now form the tag team Cree Xtreme.
Their inclusion is critical, as Cree Xtreme are not only
babyfaces - wrestling speak for heroes -
but also the only First Nations wrestlers
taking part in the tour.
For their young audiences, it's a much needed opportunity
to see legit First Nations representation in the ring.
CWF's top babyface is Jesse Bieber.
He literally grew up on the road,
cutting his teeth as a referee before becoming a
wrestler and CWF's current champion.
While he's Frank's son, no amount of nepotism can
account for his popularity with these crowds.
So, you've been a wrestling fan pretty much
your whole life, right?
Yeah, like, ah... I was born in '84.
- Wrestle Mania started in '84. - Yeah.
You know, like, it's...
Something that was, like - that I just loved.
Tim '2oolman' Hill is one third of the award-winning
and unapologetically political group,
A Tribe Called Red.
He's also a close friend and fellow life-long
wrestling fanatic.
When I told him I was traveling to Waskaganish to
witness Cree Xtreme wrestle, he jumped in a truck and
drove 22 hours to hang out with us.
Tim grew up in Canada's reserve system in
Six Nations of the Grand River, and knows firsthand the
effects it can have on the confidence
of First Nations youth.
Growing up on the res, you get a sense of like
your education isn't that great, you know.
That's what they -- that's what they say.
And, like, it usually comes even from our own people.
A lot of people like kind of like hold us down and
we get the sense that, you know, that not only that
we can't succeed out there, but we can't...
We don't belong out there.
I grew up not really having much representation in media,
being, you know, Indigenous in this world.
Like, for wrestling though it was...
always The Ultimate Warrior for me. Love the warrior.
I, I, I... I knew he wasn't...
- Yeah. - Like, Native.
Indigenous or anything, but...
The fact that he was a warrior, and what he stood for,
it just like connected with me and like...
It's all like Native people who have like
this connection with wrestling.
It's something that's universal.
We went with the boys to cut promos
at the local radio station.
Native run radio stations serve an important role on
reservations by providing a powerful local voice.
And, for CWF, it's one of the most reliable ways
to get the word out about the shows.
Ladies and gentleman, boys and girls,
this is a show not to miss.
You come out, you see wrestling's
greatest pop star, Jesse Bieber.
I am your CWF Heavyweight Champion.
No clue on wrestling yet, but I can tell you it's going
to be one hell of a show and I'm gonna make sure
you have one hell of a time.
I'm Shadow Xtreme, all the way from northern Manitoba.
Also with me is my tag team partner and relative,
Tony Caribou.
Yay.
Hello, Waskaganish.
I am the high flying spectacular First Nation sensation, Tony.
I will be... wrestling tonight.
- In action. - In action.
I will be in action. Hi-ya!
And I want to thank you. What is your name, by the way?
Greta.
Greta, are you gonna be there?
- I don't know. - She doesn't know!
So, ladies and gentlemen, come down at 7 pm,
to the Sports Complex. $2 for kids. $5 for adults.
And I guarantee you, you're gonna have a great time.
Hey!
What is it about wrestling that,
that we connected with so much? I don't understand.
Grappling was a thing with our people back then.
There's always been a practice of this grappling
and pinning each other down to the ground.
Yeah, for sure. I mean, there's leg wrestling up north.
- Yeah. - You know?
- Yeah. - There's even the... the hook.
The hook! I was gonna say the hook,
where they wrap each other's arms around and
they grab each other's cheek and then --
- And then pull. - Pull, pull.
And whoever taps first is like, you lost.
And that's a wrestling move.
That's been, like, brought into wrestling, too, right, the hook?
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
We're really big on the competition and pain.
I guess, how much you can endure.
Long before the CWF began touring,
wrestling was visiting First Nations communities in Canada.
Starting in the 1980's, Tony Condello,
a promoter based out of Winnipeg,
started running tours on reservations across the north.
Now the wrestlers of CWF continue that tradition by
making sure wrestling remains active and present
on reserves for a new generation of First Nations youth.
- Woo! Ah!
This rumble is for the title.
So, we got Tim 2oolman, from Tribe Called Red.
He's gonna be special guest referee.
Now, Tim, there are no major rules to this,
both their little feet touch the ground...?
- They're out. - They're out.
It's super hectic right now. We got four guys in the ring.
He's out.
He's out!
Shadow is my actual birth name.
It was given to me because my dad had a rock band
called The Shadows.
When I was a child, I did the crazy stuff.
I was always doing something to surprise or give a
little bit of a shock factor to people.
I used to just jump off a tree onto like a bunch of bushes
and just get scrapes and cuts, and get hurt.
That all led to being very fearless.
I'm not like a psycho, or
mentally challenged or anything.
I just don't like being bored.
There's not much to do on the res.
I wanted to become a wrestler.
I was obsessed about wrestling.
I even had dreams about being inside a wrestling ring.
I knew there was wrestling school somewhere,
and... I found it. It was quite a distance.
I had to take an eight-hour train ride.
And I jump on a Greyhound bus to Winnipeg,
was another ten hours.
The next day I had to take the train back to Puk.
And I did that once a month for a whole year and a half.
That's a...
Every kid that I talked to, talked about how
amazing it was to see you in there. You know?
Thank you.
I want to inspire.
You know, I'm Native and I'm wrestling among
my other Native people, so...
The thing was, you know, the government just,
"Here, here's some land.
Okay, do what you want over there.
Just don't bother us," basically,
so we're just in our own little cooped up area,
area, and we just...
I don't know, live life with our own.
And you know, things happen, good and bad.
And...
since the like, I was saying like we're an angry,
like angry people now because of what happened to us.
So, a lot of people like to go towards alcoholism.
It's very depressing.
- Can you borrow a quarter? - Yeah, I'll give it back.
- You're not gonna pay it back. - Yeah, I will.
- No, you're not. - I always pay back.
When?
With my land.
I guess I consider him like family.
So, he comes, stays at our house and trains at our school.
He's just, he's the great person, you know,
to have around and I guess we kind of
took him under our wing, and...
Tony's now here, Shadow's nephew.
They're a tag team and I think...
they could go places.
Whapmagoostui and Kuujjuaraapik are the
northernmost Cree and the southernmost Inuit village
in Quebec.
The community is only accessible by air and for
a few weeks in the late summer, by boat.
Me and Tony, we're both from Pukatawagan,
and I trained a lot of the kids and the teens that
were interested in wrestling.
When I purchased my wrestling ring,
Tony was the first person to come over and help
set up the wrestling ring.
Something in his life happened and he was
going down a dark path for a while.
So, when CWF came to Puk and scooped him up,
that was it.
He just needed to get out of there before it got any worse.
Okay, so now you know what you got to do?
I gotta tuck... go faster.
Okay.
Shadow's trying to get his flips back right now.
He's had to let a lot of that flip that he used to be
able to do go, so Tony's taking him through and
helping him get his flip back.
He's learning, you know. I'm helping him break it down.
I could do this too, but I don't want to show off for everyone.
- Ah! - Oh!
- Ah! - Just about!
- Better though. - You need to stick it.
Ah!
That was awesome though. You were so high!
Just seems like parkour and wrestling are such a natural
mix together, you know, they just go so well.
What do you feel wrestling has given you?
It gave me confidence.
I gave up hope for a bit 'cause I didn't have
nothing to do at Puk.
Like, I'm trying to give them something to do and
something fun.
Well, you're saving them from making an 18-hour journey,
like you had to do to go to wrestling school.
Oh, yes. And that's one of the goals
I wanted to do when I became a wrestler.
You're straight edge, you know?
Straight edge, yes.
Was it hard, growing up, avoiding...
Not even necessarily, you know,
alcohol and drugs and things like that,
but even just the conflict that brings from
people around you using drugs and alcohol?
I just somehow just stayed away from it.
I don't know how I stayed away from it.
I just stayed away.
- You are strong. - I don't know, I just...
I don't know, for some people that drink, it's normal.
It's just normal for me to like not drink and
not smoke or do drugs.
Can you grab my jacket? I'm getting cold now.
I was gonna say, you must be fucking freezing.
Do you want my jacket? Do you want me to just warm you up?
I've got my own jacket.
You gotta, you gotta keep him warm.
Oh, yeah.
I could feel my nipples getting hard, so...
As well as wrestling shows, Frank and the CWF crew
also offer training camps for local kids.
Kayla is one of their most devoted students.
She'll wait months between lessons,
as the guys only come through her town
three or four times a year.
You gonna do some stuff... some stuff?
Lock up with Jesse. Come on.
Ah... ugh!
- Good girl, yep, there you go. - So this foot. There you go.
This is strong, too. I like it.
Loosen up a little.
You should be able to move around a little bit.
Cool, ready?
I was really interested about doing the things
that they were doing.
Ya... Yeah!
So, I decided to see how it feels like
to be an actual wrestler.
- No. - No?
I have like a long term and a short term memory loss.
I got that from my father, biological father.
Watch. So I break in, okay.
I'm gonna hook his hand, step through about here.
Gonna hook, step, place. Okay?
I always wanted to get the community involved
in what we're doing.
Like, every community we go to now there's a
community member that's training with us.
I want to make that person's dream come true.
You're gonna fall down on your face, Kayla.
Just fall on your face, drop both.
Ready?
Put your hands out, hands out, hands out.
Fall down... Good girl.
Kayla's one of the girls from a community that's a
fly-in community, troubled background.
Come on, push up. Got her head.
And, she's an amazing kid.
Good girl. Nice.
We run different programs and she's been
involved with all of them.
She really, really took to the wrestling,
which I was shocked 'cause a lot of girls
don't really take to it.
You want to try and stop the pain, right.
So the way to do that...
is to try and come this way, right.
I got adopted at eight months.
My parents couldn't be able to take care of me.
Oh, oh! Oh!
Whoa!
They're still alcoholics, drug addicts.
They told me...
I won't be able to live with them until I'm 18 again,
so it's kind of hard...
Seeing them drinking or doing drugs.
I don't mainly go out anymore.
After my Grandpa passed,
I started not going out after that.
My Grandfather was like a father to me.
Here, if I wanted to, I could break off...
and flip you.
The training camp was amazing.
I had an opportunity to be able to go back outside and
see the world again,
and to be able to be connected to new people.
Oh!
You're doing awesome.
It felt like I was myself in that ring.
Like I can do anything.
Letting out all the stress inside me.
And the depression.
I feel blessed in that ring.
So tell me about your first match.
I actually won the Royal Rumble last year.
- Yeah? - Yes.
That's awesome.
A lot of kids wanted my signature for some reason.
How does that make you feel?
Like you're like a wrestling star.
Well, first of all, it's amazing that kids can like
look up to me after doing good things in life and
to be able to see how it feels to be like...
a kid that is, that is very known well in this community.
And also, you're a really positive role model, too,
because of your stance on drugs and alcohol.
- Yes. - So, you're set.
You're like the next John Cena.
Yeah.
Shadow! Shadow!
Shadow, I think he's a role model.
He avoided all the things that are affecting
kids this generation.
Hearing Kayla's story has made it clear how
Indigenous wrestlers like Shadow show kids that there's a
place for them in the world outside of the reserve.
As Tim pointed out in the beginning of the tour,
it's not just the geographically remote nature of the reserves,
but the psychological isolation that
can make kids feel trapped.
Wow!
The reality is that Aboriginal youth in Canada face many
challenges that stem from hundreds of years
of colonialism.
The weight of all of this can be overwhelming and
manifests itself in truly abhorrent statistics.
First Nations youth are over five times more likely to
take their own lives compared to the Canadian average.
From my perspective, the simple action of Cree Xtreme
visiting communities and kids like Kayla,
has the power to be revolutionary.
I think everyone should do it before we leave,
all together.
- Take off the pants too. - Just do it quick, Jess.
Actually, pants might be better 'cause then
you can put warm back on.
Definitely the socks.
There's no point in wearing your socks in.
Ah!
Right now we are in some intense negotiations to see
whether or not Jesse and Rex will go jump in the
freezing cold water behind me.
Ready? 3, 2, 1, go!
Here we go!
You bailed on me!
Oh God, guys!
- You may as well go back in. - No, fuck that!
- Oh, Tony's just going in... - Tony's going in.
- He's just walking... - Tony just walked in!
Tony! Pukatawagan's over there!
So, you don't do this in Japan?
- No. - No?
- Don't. - No?
Marufuji and you don't go running into the cold water?
No.
Kaito Kiyomiya wrestles with NOAH,
a very respected promotion back in Japan.
At this stage in his career he's referred to as in the
Japanese system, a young boy.
Basically a rookie.
Of late, he's been training under the famous
Naomichi Marufuji and he's well on his way
to having a great career.
But it's standard practice for promotions to send
their young boys abroad, gaining experience wrestling
different styles and working in front of foreign audiences.
The northern tour with CWF is Kaito's first experience
of Canada, and you have to note that this experience
couldn't be further from Tokyo.
One more time.
Good.
Hammer lock. Underneath...
So here... So, arms.
- - What do you say?
- Give up... - That's it!
Kaito, do cut offs, like throat, self-throat.
Self-throat.
No, hit hard.
Okay.
- - There you go, perfect.
- Okay. - Give stuff like that.
Heads up, thumb.
Heel, very, very heel.
Ah!
Yell at him in Japanese. Talk in your language.
- Okay. - Yell at kids.
Know what I mean? "Go!"
- Go home? - "Go home." Yeah.
- Go! -
- Go home! - Go home!
He's going to be a bad guy tonight.
Yeah... yeah.
You're going to beat Jesse Bieber?
- Jesse bad. - Break him.
Yes, break. I break.
- Break him. - Broke, broke.
Cut a promo. Say, "break him".
Jesse Bieber, I broke him!
Kaito's only way of communicating with the
other wrestlers is some very basic English and
the language of wrestling.
The rest of his experience is left to pure observation.
The history and present day situation these communities face
is little known within other parts of Canada,
much less in Japan.
So I can't imagine what he must think of the whole tour.
Jesse! Jesse!
Oh!
1, 2...
Four!
Six!
1, 2, 3!
Eastmain is a Cree community located on the east coast of
James Bay in northern Quebec.
Its population is 767 people,
meaning about half the community will be
ringside this evening.
Having Jesse on tour with me, it's amazing.
Jesse Bieber's been here for 9 years.
These kids have actually grown up with Jesse.
Every night I get to watch my kid shine like a star.
He started when he was 14 years old as a referee,
busted his butt.
The old owner picked on him so much.
One day he just told me, he's like,
"Dad, I want to wrestle."
Before you know it, Jesse was thrown into a rumble.
He kind of looked like Justin Bieber.
All of a sudden people just started calling him Bieber.
"Bieber, Bieber, Bieber!"
Right now, we are seeing Jesse Bieber
wrestle a dastardly villain.
Jesse Bieber, of course, is the hero to this audience.
Back home I'm actually not a babyface.
I'm actually the heel. I play more off -
based off the millennial kind of character.
So, when I get into the ring I want to do the
high pitched screeches, I want to do the tantrum so that way
I can get everybody mad at me so they're like,
"Oh, this guy's a little spoiled brat."
- - Hey, hey, hey!
Let me at him!
Here, it's totally different.
They know me almost as like a personal level because
I have grown up with them.
He's a cheater!
And the best part is, I'm just entertaining;
that's all I do.
What are you doing?
I have an idea! Play some music!
So I do a lot of comedy and I do a lot of interacting with them.
Jesse! Jesse!
As long as they're invested in my match, I'm happy.
You can tell that the CWF has been doing this for years
because this card is perfectly suited for this room.
They're winning them over with every spot.
Did I always wanted my kids to follow in my footsteps and
become a wrestler?
I don't think I really thought of that
when I first started my wrestling.
I should have expected it because I would go home and
I'd wrestle with my kids all the time.
Father versus son.
This is so intense!
Yeah, this is I think the most intense match between them.
Yay!
- Boo! - Oh, God.
Ah!
Boo!
There's something especially vicious about watching
a dad suplex his own son.
We don't walk around saying Jesse's my son.
Matter of fact, a lot of people don't know that.
Jesse is extremely talented...
And, I don't want people looking down at him because
he's the promoter's kid.
- Don't do it! - Oh!
Oh my God.
Looks like Jesse got busted open in the mouth.
- Should we follow? - Yeah, let's follow.
Jesse! Jesse!
Oh, this is gonna be awesome.
Okay, that was new.
Wrestling!
Gross. Oh yeah, my tooth was inside my lip.
I had to like pull my lip out and up.
- You alright? - Yeah, yeah.
- Sorry. - No, don't worry about it.
It's fine. It happens.
Here. You can tape it back together.
Can I put this back together again?
Got some glue?
You just cut my hair?
It's Canada birthday today, and for some,
a pretty significant one, too.
Canada is 150 years old.
While there is a barbeque and smiling faces,
it's pretty evident that this national holiday means
something completely different in Cree territory.
Beginning as a Hudson Bay Company trading post,
Eastmain has only been reserved for the Cree people
since 1962.
But these are traditional lands going back thousands
of years, so for many, there's a palpable tension
around the image of a maple leaf being celebrated
on stolen Native land.
Reality is the best story.
He's coming out, "I'm Mr. Canada,"
and they're the first real Canadians.
So, like, when you're throwing it in their faces,
you know what I mean, you're obviously getting
an instant reaction of...
"Who the hell is this guy? Who does he think he is?"
And, instantly, they hate him.
Sometimes when I come up with these ideas I'm like,
Oh, I don't know, pushing the envelope.
You suck! You suck!
Sometimes pushing the envelope is good.
Here, you got Mr. Aboriginal himself.
Here he is fighting for us.
Everybody in that audience wanted to be Shadow.
Shadow! Shadow!
3!
1, 2, 3!
That's a T, that's an O.
There's the N. There's the Y.
I've witnessed wrestling matches around the world,
but I don't think I've ever met wrestlers with more of
a direct impact on their fans than CWF,
especially Tony and Shadow.
Their audiences are young, impressionable,
and starved for outside perspectives.
It's telling of the disconnect between Canada
and the nations I visited that this band of road warriors
are literally the only live entertainment that
makes it to these communities.
Ah!
I don't think the wrestlers plan on it,
nor are they even fully aware of it,
but they command great responsibility.
Matthew the Mountie versus Cree Xtreme was more than
just a wrestling match; it represents an ongoing
dialogue around who or what is Canadian.
And importantly, what does a Canadian hero
look like by default?
The fact that this is happening on Canada's 150th birthday
couldn't come at a more opportune time.
There are few places on the planet where you can't
tune into some form of professional wrestling
on a television or the internet.
But to experience it in the flesh is a different story.
For the remote First Nations communities of northern Canada,
it'd be all but impossible if it weren't
for the mettle of the wrestlers of the CWF.
But the relationship is reciprocal to say the least.
The history of fandom within these communities is deep,
and rooted in something more than
just pure spectacle.
I can't help but think that tucked far away from the
glitz and glamour of the main stage,
resides the beating heart of
the audiences of these small communities...
and the wrestlers willing to weather the roads to find them.
See you.