On a 2016 trip up in Northern Manitoba, Stephan Peterson had $20 and time to kill. There weren’t many options around that night—nor were there ever, really—but that evening, wrestling was in town. Why not? He thought.
Peterson knew about wrestling, but certainly wouldn’t call himself a fan. He remembers defying the “Don’t Try This At Home” advice as a kid—as we all did—and acted out moves on his friend’s trampoline. But he wasn’t a follower of the scene at all.
He was just passing time and, admittedly, didn’t really expect much from the show he was going to see. Little did he know, that night would kick off a multi-year project for him and eventually birth a feature-length documentary on one of the most legendary wrestling tours.
“I was really taken aback,” Peterson remembers feeling, as he watched the event. “Who are these people doing crazy backflips and stuff in minimal clothing?” he thought to himself. He also wondered what the story was with the mob of children absolutely losing their minds at the matches.
Flips, minimal clothing, and lots of children are par for the course for most wrestling events. But for Peterson, it was a culture shock. It was only much afterward that he did some research and found out that what he attended specifically was a much bigger part of wrestling history than just any show.
The Canadian Death Tour, also known as the “Northern Hell Tour,” is an annual trip through northern Canada run by Tony Condello. The two-week trip is known for its grueling pace that wears on the mind and body of performers: Drive for hours, sleep on a gym floor, set up a ring, wrestle, repeat. No partying, no drinking, just put your head down and work. Don’t follow those rules? Condello won’t mind leaving you behind in a remote, frigid environment.
But for all of the tour’s relentless demands, it’s also known for being a trip that can show who is truly cut out for the life of being a wrestler. Numerous greats—including Christian Cage, Chris Jericho, Kenny Omega, and Adam Copeland—have been on the trip in prior decades.
The tour’s importance spurred the creation of “The Death Tour,” a documentary that is now available on Canadian streaming platform CBC Gem.
While the tour certainly has relevance in wrestling history, that might not be what makes it the most important. The trip hits numerous Indigenous reserves, many of which are very isolated and see little-to-no entertainment enter from outside. These locations continue to deal with the ripple effects of colonization, and issues like suicide and substance abuse are an epidemic. The documentary shows some of these communities experience loss while the wrestling tour comes through town, causing some events to get canceled.
The tour had become an escape for children in these communities, many of whom went to the wrestling shows just like previous generations of their families did when they were kids as well. The effect that the entertainment has is simply more than just a fun few hours, but a time to inspire and provide hope.
“I really saw and understood the depth of the exchange and the connection with the communities,” Peterson told POST Wrestling. “We spoke to the communities a bit and [they told us] ‘Wrestling’s been coming here for 50 years, and my parents used to watch this. My grandparents used to watch this.’ And that was when we kind of understood that, well, this is far more than just a wrestling doc.”
Peterson knew he had two questions he wanted to tackle: Why do these people wrestle, and why does it matter? But, he knew he needed some help, especially if he wanted to provide a thoughtful look at the communities the tour touched.
A perfect tag team forms
At a glance, “The Death Tour” seemed like the perfect project for Sonya Ballantyne to work on.
Ballantyne grew up in Misipawistik Cree Nation and is a lifelong wrestling fan, singing the praises of greats like Shawn Michaels and Bret Hart. She even had a first-hand encounter with the tour around when they were a child, meeting Adam Copeland before he got the call-up to wrestle in the WWE.
Yet, when director Stephan Peterson approached them about the opportunity to work as a co-director on the project, she didn’t immediately say yes. Ballantyne was worried that their Indigenous background would just be utilized as a promotional point for the film, simply using her as a name on forms to secure the crucial funding needed to produce an independent film.
“Oh, I’m not interested in that,” she remembered thinking.
But it was an honest, vulnerable admission from Peterson later on that made Ballantyne change their mind.
“I think it’s really essential that you be my co-director on this because there is a part of the story I don’t feel comfortable or able to tell specifically about Indigenous communities that this tour encounters,” Ballantyne remembers being told by Peterson. “I was really impressed and overwhelmed in such a good way,” she said.
From that point forward, Peterson and Ballantyne were a great tag team. Ballantyne had the knowledge of a wrestling fan, so much that Peterson wondered if she called herself a “smark,” while Peterson had the eyes of a viewer who would watch the doc without a love for wrestling. Peterson was an outsider looking in on Indigenous communities, while Ballantyne had a personal connection that greatly complimented the story.
The balance allowed them to make a documentary that could appeal to wrestling fans, but also to those who simply want to watch a great story.
“I think together we were both like, ‘Hey, this appeals to me, and this appeals to me. Okay, cool. I think we’re we’re treading that line,’” Peterson said.
Finally shooting “The Death Tour” was a long time coming for Peterson. He had been slowly chipping away at the project for years and years. He waited out the lockdown years of the COVID-19 pandemic and was just trying to find the right year to finally set out and film. By 2023, with Ballantyne by his side, he knew it was time to go.
A cast is formed
Since they were shooting nearly 2 terabytes per day of footage, everybody they followed couldn’t make the cut. They eventually settled on four wrestlers: McKenrose The Scottish Warrior, Massive Damage, Sage Morin, and Dez Loreen.
Each wrestler had their own goal throughout the tour: McKenrose, a French-Canadian woman who found wrestling as an escape, was coming out of her shell as she teamed with strangers-turned-wrestling family for two weeks. Massive Damage was a veteran talent in his twilight years, chasing the last good matches he could get. Loreen, an Inuk man, had a fandom-based passion for wrestling but little in-ring experience before the trip. And Morin, a Saddle Lake Cree Nation woman, was hoping to inspire as the first Indigenous woman to perform on the tour.
When working on a wrestling documentary, it doesn’t take a lot of effort to find characters. Peterson admitted that the casting was quite easy, as he believes the wrestling scene is full of interesting people with unique backstories.
“It really seems that wrestling has this way of attracting these people who kind of come from have a crazy background, and wrestling seems to have pulled so many people out from a tough spot.”
Putting numerous different wrestlers with inspiring storylines all on the same trip—causing them to share jam-packed cars and sleep on the same gym floors together—seems like the premise of a reality TV show meant to cause tension. But it’s real life, and that’s how the Death Tour has operated for decades. Also surprising, is that this environment is less a pressure cooker for drama, but instead a space that brought strangers close almost immediately.
“These wrestlers who come from all different walks of life and parts of the country, and backgrounds and experience all kind of become a family,” Peterson said. “And that doesn’t totally surprise me, but the degree to which they all just quickly became a family [does]. A dysfunctional family in some ways, [but it] was really kind of beautiful to see.”
Bigger than wrestling
For Ballantyne, recording the documentary was a personal journey of sorts. The trip up north gave them time to reflect on their upbringing. The writer and director thought about how she saw little Indigenous representation when growing up, and how that affected her.
“It was very hard for me to find people who look like me in positions I wanted to be in,” Ballantyne remembers. “I think the only girl hero I ever had as a kid was the trainee from Power Rangers, ‘cause she was a pale brown girl who looked like me, but she was Vietnamese. Bull Nakano, I thought, looked like me, but she was Japanese.”
Ballantyne recalled how seeing an Indigenous wrestler or artist when growing up might have pushed her into either of those careers early in life. But since they didn’t see someone like them in those spaces, it was hard to picture herself there. Maybe something could change with people like Sage being shown to these communities, Ballantyne thought.
Even beyond influencing kids who want to become wrestlers someday, Ballantyne says the representation that came from the Death Tour was important. Sage being on the tour and proudly representing her Cree background in an empowering way provides a positive message to children.
“A lot of these communities still had very negative effects of colonization, where there was a lot of self-hatred about being Indigenous and embracing your culture,” Ballantyne said. “I had also experienced that as a child, where the idea of being Cree was like to be less than. So to have these kids not only see somebody who is like them but have them be passed in a heroic light was, I think, something that we won’t see the effects of fully until like these kids get older.”
The Death Tour means something different for everyone. For the performers, it’s a way to prove yourself and embrace enthusiastic, packed crowds for two weeks straight. For the kids, it’s an escape, a way to feel inspired, or simply just a fun evening. In just roughly 90 minutes, “The Death Tour” covers all of those angles and shows how truly unique the annual Canadian wrestling tradition is.
The Death Tour is streaming free on CBC Gem in Canada
