Screen grab from Horse Woman documentary

By Glenn Hicks

From wildfire to discovery

Local film recounts story of wild horses, the land, and trusting your instincts.

Nov 15, 2024 | 1:45 PM

A local Indigenous filmmaker has created a short documentary that traces the stressful evacuation of her then 19-year-old daughter and her wild horses amid the White Rock Lake wildfire in 2022.

The 33-minute production, Horse Woman sn̓kłca̓ʔsqáx̌aʔ tkłmílxʷ, is now available to view as part of the TELUS STORYHIVE’s Indigenous Storyteller Edition, with additional funding help from Creative BC.

Vernon filmmaker, Mariel Belanger, worked alongside her daughter Sienna, from the Okanagan Indian Band, who had used her mobile phone to document the approaching wildfire and the rescue and relocation of her horses. That footage is then combined with the work of a professional cinematographer who depicts the gorgeous landscape and interviews with the two women.

“The story is told through our two different perspectives of this experience: mine and my mother’s,” Sienna explained to Vernon Matters. “It’s about how we’ve both come together to heal and to build on our relationship.”

The documentary follows Sienna, and her journey to reconnect with the land following harmful lifestyle habits that arose from being disconnected from it. Her horses gave her a renewed sense of responsibility and purpose.

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“I could see the wildfire coming; everyone else was staying inside out of the smoke but my horses were coughing and the pillar of smoke over the mountain was getting closer and closer,“ Sienna recalled.

In essence, the story is about her defying her mother and choosing to rescue her horses, only to find herself being rescued by them in return.

She said she was arguing with her mom who figured the fire was not an immediate threat, but it was. By then Sienna had made connections with a local rescue team, Born Free Equine, who moved the horses away the next day. Sienna went with the animals and spent the next three months with them in Midway.

“The messages in [the documentary] are trusting your instincts and your community members around you,” she said. “And build onto your community as we have done. Just have faith in the universe that everything will be okay.”

The short film is part of 19 new short films from the program produced by new and emerging Indigenous filmmakers that just premiered today and is available on TELUS Optik TV channel 9, channel 126, Stream+ and STORYHIVE’s YouTube Channel.