Our return from Toronto wasn’t as epic as our attempt to get there, but the saga continues . . . It started with a 4AM wake-up call that startled the four of us from our dreamy-headed sleep attempting to figure out where and what the hell that early morning noise was. Then my cell phone went off and I reset it for 4:30AM. That came too soon and I was up and in the bathroom washing the sleep from my eyes. Rene, Maria and Sonny were soon to follow suit and then Maria and I headed to the lobby so she could check out. While she dealt with the counter clerk, Zacharias Kunuk queued in line (actually he was the only other person in the lobby aside from staff) and I briefly questioned him about the award ceremonies the evening prior. I didn’t attend since I was planning on driving the crew out of Toronto. Filmmaker Bruce Haulli followed Zacharias shortly thereafter, Sonny and Renee soon accompanied us at the front desk, and we exchanged farewells with Bruce since Zacharias had taken his leave.

The under-rested, sleepy-headed NAICA crew made their way to parking level One to their Zip rental car named, MOTHER and packed our belongings into the trunk space and I proceeded to back us out of our parking spot (which took longer than I had intended) and hit the early morning Toronto streets. 5:00AM in Toronto is hauntingly eerie and empty. We headed out hoping we’d find some coffee place to fuel up, or more appropriately, wake up.

We got on the Gardiner Expressway and headed west out of Toronto. That early in the morning it was difficult converting the metric system to the English system to determine what speed I was cruising at, but I just gauged it by the other drivers. The drive to the QEW was long and filled with nothing more than suburban sprawl, the plight of North America. We were all itching to get out of Canada for some unexplained reason. It took a while to get out of the congested area surrounding Toronto before we found an exit to get off at so we could get coffee (by the way, I pulled off at what I thought was an exit earlier but turned out to be a truck weigh station–Canada does not denote these things well), the only business catering that early was Tim Horton’s and the coffee is nothing close to palatable. At one point, the east bound lane of the QEW had a small back up of traffic, some skeleton of a tractor trailer was still smoldering and partly ablaze and the river of headlights heading toward the emergency vehicles would be a tale to tell I’m sure.

Long story short, we finally made our way to the US Custom’s checkpoint. Needless to say, the custom’s agent was a bit too old to be manning the area since he couldn’t hear well enough with all the background noise and his short attitude didn’t make for a welcomed return back to New York. With a communal sigh of relief we were all happy to be back in the states, NY to be specific. Getting through Buffalo proved long since we joined the morning commuters rush hour and we needed to get to the Thruway so I could punch it and make it to Syracuse as fast as I could. The Thruway shoulders and medians were littered with the carrion of deer and my only thought was of the possible short supply of game for hunters this season. We only stopped once on the Thruway to coffee up and eat, and that was quickly. We had 45 minutes to Syracuse and I was getting anxious to get out of the car since I have a problematic knee, proving only problematic when fixed on a gas pedal for long periods of time. Finally, I pulled in front of my apartment and got out to stretch the legs and unload my share of the luggage burden. The crew came in helping me carry my miscellany into the apartment; refreshed themselves and then we said our farewells and exchanged hugs. As I turned to head into the house, a bit of sadness overwhelmed me knowing that I was going to experience some separation anxiety from my colleagues. But, we were back in NY.

Overall, my experience at ImagineNative was a good one, bonding more with my colleagues from NAICA, making new friends, enjoying a new city, watching some rather wonderful films and contemplating some rather confusing programs. This year’s festival may not have been as strong as previous year’s, but I can only comment on those events I attended and hope for the continued future success of ImagineNative.