A mischievous monster named Baabii, short for Baabiiwaashi, is enchanting audiences across Ontario with his bold personality, jokes, and songs.
In the process, Baabii (pronounced like "Bobby") is helping revitalize the Ojibwe language, or Anishinaabemowin.
"Language captures the way a culture relates to the world around them. It holds a lot of history and heritage, such as how spirits and the land are spoken of," says John-Paul Chalykoff (BEd'12/MEd'19). John-Paul is a member of Michipicoten First Nation near Wawa, Ontario, and the creative artist behind Baabii.
Baabii—a big blue furry puppet with yellow horns and purple hair—is appearing at Fringe Festivals, schools, Indigenous communities, and many other events, to the acclaim of children and adults alike.
John-Paul asked Elder John Bobbiwash's son and grandson for permission to use a version of his name for his puppet Baabii. "Baabii is breaking barriers, like Elder Bobbiwash, and makes language more fun and accessible," John-Paul says.
John-Paul is thrilled that his alter ego is becoming a celebrity, because his mission to foster Anishinaabemowin is not an easy one.
Today, there are less than 40,000 Anishinaabemowin speakers in North America, and this grammatically complex language is one of the most difficult in the world to learn.
"It's a verb-based language with fewer nouns and a flexible word order," says John-Paul, who's also a distinguished Anishinaabe Studies and Anishinaabemowin professor at Algoma University in Sault Ste. Marie, Ontario. "For instance, 'That cup is blue,' would be more like, 'That cup is the colour of the sky, (giizhigwaande)' and this varies according to whether the object you're talking about is animate or inanimate."
Although Anishinaabemowin was the first language of John-Paul's grandmother, she lost her fluency when she was a child, and the language wasn't spoken again in John-Paul's family until his mother began studying Ojibwe at Algoma University (she later completed Lakehead University's Indigenous Instructor program).
"My mom inspired me to follow in her footsteps," John-Paul says. He, too, did an undergraduate degree in Anishinaabemowin at Algoma before completing a Bachelor of Education at Lakehead in 2012.
"At the time Lakehead was the only Bachelor of Education program that offered a specialization in Native Studies and Indigenous Language, so it was the only school I applied to—it was Lakehead or nothing."
John-Paul subsequently earned a Master of Education at Lakehead, focusing on language revitalization, in 2019.
A Star is Born
John-Paul says that Lakehead professor Dr. David Greenwood's "Holistic and Contemplative Education" course "encouraged students to think about what was important to us. That's when I understood that I didn't want to let go of education, language, and music. Afterwards, I worked with Dr. Pauline Sameshima to hone the idea of intertwining music, art, and language."
Baabii sprang from John-Paul's imagination during the pandemic when he was teaching at Michigan State University in East Lansing, Michigan.
"The Disney+ channel launched during this period, and watching shows with puppets made me see that they could add a visual element to the Anishinaabemowin children's songs I'd been writing for almost a decade," John-Paul explains.
He wanted to create a puppet reminiscent of the colourful friendly ones popularized by Sesame Street and the Muppets.
"One night, my partner cut eyes, ears, noses, and mouths out of paper and scattered them on the kitchen table. I moved them around until I found a face that I liked and sketched it on a tablet."
He sent his sketch to a puppet maker on Etsy and several weeks later Baabii arrived. "He was a challenging puppet to learn on, because he's over three feet tall—the size of a large toddler."
Although John-Paul put great care into Baabii's physical appearance, one of the most important aspects of his creation was selecting a name that would honour the puppet's purpose.
"I wanted him to have an Ojibwe name that was longer, but that could be shortened and pronounced by anyone," John-Paul says. He chose the name Baabiiwaash (which means she or he is scattered here and there by the wind) in tribute to Elder John Bobbiwash, who lived in Sault Ste. Marie before passing away in 2021.
"Elder Bobbiwash was welcoming and non-judgmental and very involved in local communities," John-Paul says. "He was a real character—there was humour in everything he did."
Puppetry soon became the vital fourth pillar of John-Paul's work, along with education, music, and language. The power that comes from combining these different mediums can be seen in the strong connection between Baabii and his audiences.
"People talk directly to Baabii, and kids want to high five him at the end of performances," John-Paul says. "At a school in Thessalon, Ontario, they asked for Baabii's autograph—and if he motivates people to learn Ojibwe and makes it cool, that's wonderful."
May the Force Be with You
Patricia Ningewance Nadeau, who received a Doctor of Humane Letters from Lakehead in 2024 and taught Indigenous languages at Lakehead, was the lead translator and adaptor of the Anishinaabemowin version of Star Wars: A New Hope.
Puppetry and music are not John-Paul's only skills as an artist. He recently became part of the Star Wars universe when he voiced the character of Uncle Owen in an Anishinaabemowin-dubbed version of Star Wars: A New Hope, the iconic science-fiction movie first released in 1977.
"I actually started off as an Ewok fan when I was a child," John-Paul says. "I didn't realize it was a Star Wars spin-off until my parents told me otherwise. I still love Wicket, the main Ewok."
The film was voiced by a talented cast of multi-generational Anishinaabe speakers as part of a language revitalization project in support of truth and reconciliation.
"I did an online audition through Zoom and was cast to dub some of the minor characters," John-Paul says. But the day before he arrived in Winnipeg, he got an email saying that he would also be voicing Uncle Owen—Luke Skywalker's uncle. "Uncle Owen and Aunt Beru raised Luke. He's a grounding father figure who makes sure that Luke does the work that he needs to do on their ranch."
The film was dubbed in Winnipeg in May 2024 followed by final mixing at Skywalker Sound in California.
"I tried not to be nervous or overthink it too much," John-Paul says. "I did the voice work in a recording booth with the movie running on a screen inside the booth and Lucasfilm sound engineers outside. First, they played the lines in English and then they played an Ojibwe translation so that I could match the words to the mouth movements of the actors."
Above is the recording booth where John-Paul voiced Uncle Owen's dialogue.
The Anishinaabemowin version of Star Wars (Anangong Miigaading): A New Hope premiered on August 8, 2024, at the Centennial Concert Hall in Winnipeg and, in collaboration with Walt Disney Studios Canada, free screenings are being shown in communities across the country (it's already been screened once in Thunder Bay), and it's just been released on Disney+.
John-Paul has now moved onto a new creative project. "I'm working on my first CD of children's songs, and I want to begin making educational videos featuring Baabii singing Anishinaabemowin songs. I'm also hoping to write about my work from an academic standpoint—it connects and informs everything that I do. Projects like Baabii and Star Wars wouldn't have been possible without all of my language teachers and mentors over the years—it's been a true community-building effort."
John-Paul believes that some of the credit for Baabii's magic should be given to the children who love him. "Kids will ask questions like 'What's Baabii's favourite movie and what's his favourite book? They don't realize how much they're helping him come alive as a character."
And, he adds, "Baabii's favourite book is Where the Wild Things Are because it has a lot of big furry monsters running around."
Click here to watch the movie trailer for Star Wars (Anangong Miigaading): A New Hope.