Storyteller Alanis Obomsawin is as prolific in her filmmaking as in her generosity

When filmmaker Alanis Obomsawin was 16 years old, she started giving Christmas presents to every child in her Northern Quebec hometown. She made them herself, using patterns from a children’s drawing to sew stuffed animals such as horses and dogs.“I had no money and would fill them up with rags,” Ms. Obomsawin recalled in an interview with the Globe and Mail in Ottawa. For wrapping, she used newspaper, which she drew pictures on.