SYNOPSIS

This powerful one - hour documentary witnesses and celebrates young Kwakwaka'wakw artist John Walkus Green's journey home to the village he was forcefully adopted out of as a child. This story is also an investigation into the BC Provincial Government's Adoption policies which had tragic consequences for the children it was meant to protect.

John Walkus was raised in and around Tsulquate, a native Village near Port Hardy. As a young child he was "adopted out" to a non-native family. The traumatic experience of being stripped of his culture and cut off from his birth family emotionally scarred John. He passed through six long years of delinquency before starting out on the difficult journey home. John finally went back to his village but he was rejected for being "white" and had to face the bitter truth: it is difficult for 'adoptees' to return to the world they were taken away from. With the loss of family, heritage, language and ceremony, many adoptees grow up feeling different. Torn between two cultures yet discriminated against by both, they often struggle between two worlds. While many non-native foster and adoptive parents did their best to nurture, heal and raise the First Nations children entrusted to their care, the consequences were often disastrous.

Through the commitment and strength of this young man's struggle to belong, combined with the voices of other young adoptees and the advocates who fight for them, John's story becomes a remarkable journey ~ as he 'carves' his way home. The John Walkus Story has all the elements of a modern day myth. For those negotiating life in two worlds, To Return is a hero's adventure that comes full circle.

And where we had thought to travel outward, we will come to the center of our own existence. And where we had thought to be alone, we will be with all the world.

Joseph Campbell, The Power of Myth