Turning Points: Ernest
Ernest Betsina is the elected Chief of the Yellowknives Dene First Nation. Chief Betsina shares his struggle with alcohol following the deaths of his wife and father. His story traces his journey to sobriety through, family, faith and finding purpose.
“There was too many emotions, too many feelings that I didn’t know how to experience. I just ended up starting drinking again, because I didn’t know how to handle it.”
Ernest Betsina
Turning Points is a series of eight short films about alcohol use, addiction, and healing in Yellowknife, directed by the storytellers themselves. An outcome of Peter Klein’s 2016 Wall Solutions project “Turning Points: An Empowerment Connection Project for Indigenous People with Alcohol Dependence”, the video production provided a platform for people from Indigenous communities across the Canadian Arctic to connect, share their experiences and tap into storytelling traditions that have been used to connect and heal people for centuries.
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