When Damien Eagle Bear first encountered Pernell Bad Arm at the Lethbridge Shelter and Resource Centre, he received two completely contradictory assessments of the man who would later become an unlikely internet phenomenon.
Contradictory First Impressions
Eagle Bear was training to become a security guard at the shelter when he first properly met Pernell, though he had briefly interviewed him years earlier for an unfinished documentary about the shelter's clients. One security guard warned Eagle Bear to be careful around Pernell, describing him as someone who would fight and couldn't be trusted.
"One of the security guards — he wants to be a cop kind of type — was warning me, 'Oh, you have to be careful of that guy, he'll fight you, you can't turn your back on him. He's a threat,'" Eagle Bear recalls.
But shortly after this warning, another worker offered a completely different perspective, leaning in to tell Eagle Bear, "Don't worry about Pernell, he's a kitten." This stark contrast in perceptions would eventually form the central theme of Eagle Bear's documentary about the man behind the meme.
The Real Pernell Bad Arm Emerges
Eagle Bear quickly discovered that the second assessment was more accurate. Despite Pernell's struggles with alcohol addiction and life on the streets of Lethbridge, he was fundamentally a decent person. Born into a large, supportive family within Kainai First Nation, Pernell spoke fluent Blackfoot and was known for his loyalty to friends.
If Pernell found himself in confrontations, it was typically because he was defending someone he cared about. He was generally reasonable, kind, and far from the threatening figure some had made him out to be.
From Shelter to Internet Sensation
The story takes an unexpected turn six years after Eagle Bear first filmed Pernell at the shelter. By this time, Eagle Bear had graduated from film school in Vancouver when a friend showed him an image that had begun circulating online.
The photo showed a middle-aged, long-haired Indigenous man looking dishevelled with his fists raised, accompanied by the term #skoden — a reference to the defiant Indigenous saying that is short for "let's go then."
The meme spread rapidly throughout Indigenous communities across Canada and the United States and beyond. Pernell's face began appearing on T-shirts and other merchandise, though Eagle Bear recognized the image immediately from his earlier documentary work.
While some in the Indigenous community found the meme empowering, its origins were more complicated. Pernell Bad Arm had died in 2015 at the shelter, never knowing he would achieve posthumous online fame.
Documenting the Full Story
Eagle Bear's documentary, #skoden, aims to explore these competing narratives and reveal the real person behind the viral image. The film screens Saturday at the Globe Cinema as part of Calgary Underground Film Festival's CUFF.Docs program.
Through his film, Eagle Bear seeks to honor Pernell's memory and provide a more nuanced portrait than either the fearful security guard's assessment or the simplified internet meme could offer. The documentary represents an effort to reclaim the narrative about an Indigenous man whose image spread widely without context or consent.
#skoden serves as both a tribute to Pernell Bad Arm's life and a commentary on how Indigenous people are often misunderstood and misrepresented in both personal interactions and digital spaces.
