Chrys Salt, MBE is a poet with roots deeply planted in the theatre. She is Artistic Director of The Bakehouse Community Arts and the BIG LIT Festival based in Scotland.
Skookum Jim and The American Dream
This is the trailer for Skookum Jim and The American Dream, a forty-minute film based on poet Chrys Salt’s narrative poetry sequence “Skookum Jim and The Klondike Gold Rush”.
In 2021 it won The Award of Recognition at the IndieFest Film Awards.
The film is the work of Scottish artist and film-maker Ken Smyth with a soundtrack by composer Richard Ingham and readings by Chrys and Canadian actor and broadcaster Peter Marinker.
The sequence explores the impact of the Klondike gold rush on both the indigenous people of Yukon in north-west Canada, and on the fake-news-inspired stampede of get-rich-quick prospectors. It raises issues of racism, cultural imperialism and environmental destruction.
The project has been generously supported by Creative Scotland.
