“We have an opportunity with this show, with
‘Molly of Denali,’ to inform and to show us in
a positive and respectful light,” says Johnson,
creative producer of the series and a member
of an Athabascan group, Neets’aii Gwich’in. Her
family has roots in Arctic Village, Alaska, but she
grew up all over the state, she says, including
summers spent with her grandmother in the
Gwich’in village of Fort Yukon.
Native Americans voice the indigenous
characters in the series, which is co-produced
by Boston-based WGBH and animation partner
Atomic Cartoons in collaboration with Alaska
Native advisers and script writers.
Molly is voiced by 14-year-old Sovereign Bill of
Auburn, Washington. Bill, who auditioned for the
role after hearing about it through a Seattle-based
Native youth theater group, is a member of the
Muckleshoot Indian tribe in Washington and the
T’ak Dein Taan clan of the Tlingit tribe from the
southeast Alaska community of Hoonah.
Bill said her mother was deeply touched by one
of the stories in the hour-long premiere: a look
at Molly’s grandfather, who left his traditional
drum with a friend way back in his youth. Molly
goes on to find the friend and drum in another
community, using clues in an old photo of her
grandfather and his friend to search the internet.
It turns out the grandfather had given up
singing along with the drum after he was sent
away — as scores of Native children once were
— to boarding school, where students were
prohibited from practicing their tribal songs
amid language suppression efforts. The story
ends with the grandfather reconnecting with
those cherished traditions.