Hilary Swank filming TV series in Yellowknife, with Dettah standing in for Alaska
Two-time Oscar winning actress Hilary Swank is in Yellowknife this week filming a new television series called "Alaska Daily."
Swank, along with dozens of people involved in the show's production, have been filming in Yellowknife and Dettah.
The show is set to premiere on ABC next month. It follows the journey of Eileen Fitzgerald — played by Swank — an award-winning investigative journalist who "leaves her high-profile New York life behind after a fall from grace to join a daily metro newspaper in Anchorage," the show's website says.
On Thursday, Swank and the show's crew were in Dettah filming and meeting with community members. Dettah Chief Ed Sangris said the production has turned his community into an Alaskan town.
"They took some of the signs down, covered things up and moved them around," Sangria said. "They made the 'old folks' home in Dettah, the outside anyway, into a city hall. The band office they're using as a police station … they're all over the place in Dettah."
Sangris and other community leaders held a feeding of the fire ceremony Thursday afternoon for Swank and the production crew. He says the production even hired community residents to work as extras in some scenes.
"We wanted to show them the culture and tradition that we always carried on," he said. "Everybody [in Dettah] will be glued to their TV sets on the day that they're going to show it."
The series premiere will air on ABC on Oct. 6.
