For those who call Haida Gwaii home, Haida art and culture are more than just history. Rooted in centuries of tradition, they continue to evolve every day. This has been captured by local filmmakers whose second season of their series, Petroglyphs to Pixels (P2P), has just been released on APTN.
P2P is a documentary series that highlights the continuity of Indigenous art—from ancient petroglyphs and carvings to the latest digital trends—while underscoring that these expressions are woven into our daily lives, not just displayed in galleries.
Produced by Marianne Jones and Jeff Bear, P2P stems from a partnership forged through both marriage and decades of media work. Jones, who narrates and co-produces, began her career acting in Canadian television mainstays such as The Beachcombers and appearing in shows like MacGyver and Northern Exposure. Bear, originally from Tobique First Nation in New Brunswick, is a longtime photojournalist and producer who has contributed to numerous Indigenous-focused programs for CBC and APTN. In 2016, the couple came home to Haida Gwaii where they have semi-retired while still independently producing their passion projects like Raven to Eagles and now P2P which is the fourth TV series the couple has independently produced.
The first season followed them across Canada, spotlighting a wide range of Indigenous artists. One of the standouts was Bear’s long-time friend Jim Hart, a master carver from Haida Gwaii whose monumental work—and passion for teaching new generations—embodied the notion of preserving and reshaping tradition.
Season Two was initially planned as another cross-country endeavour, but the COVID-19 pandemic forced Jones and Bear to switch gears in 2020. Rather than delay production, they narrowed the scope to a 13-episode season filmed entirely on Haida Gwaii. That decision led to an up-close look at local artists such as Kwiaahwah Jones, who continues the art of traditional tattooing, and Reg and Robert Davidson, who were captured carving a Memorial Pole honouring the late Ben Davidson. “Ben was supposed to be featured in the season and I was there filming the drop off of the log,” Bear explained. The Log was then handed over to Reg and Robert who carved it into Ben’s Memorial Pole. “I was right there till it was risen.” The story unfolds in the eleventh episode of the series. These are a few of the stories featured in the series that reveal how the community’s art, memory and sense of connection are interlaced.
Pandemic restrictions also changed how filming took place. With travel options limited, Bear took on multiple roles—director, producer, writer and editor—while Jones continued narrating, co-producing and coordinating both logistics and on-camera work. They got help from Albert Lund, a neighbour and “jack-of-all-trades” who had no prior filmmaking experience but proved essential in keeping the project running smoothly. “I trained Bert in no time; he would come to anticipate where I would need the camera to be,” Bear said. “He learnt so much from this experience.”
Throughout this new season, Petroglyphs to Pixels is set to remind the viewer that Indigenous art is held together by relationships—among the land, the people and the generations before and after us. Provenance is viewed as more than a chain of custody; on Haida Gwaii, it is a living heritage shaped by family legacies and the enduring pulse of our culture.
You can watch the second season of Petroglyphs to Pixels on APTN which started airing January 6th, with episodes airing weekly.