Frontier, Season 2, now airing on Discovery Canada and Netflix in the U.S.
Jenner, Alta, isn’t a town.
It’s officially a hamlet, a place so small that there’s no official population data. It consists of a gas station, a tiny school and the Prairie Dust Motel. Jenner’s Wikipedia page notes its geographic location, its semi-arid, continental climate, and its sole notable resident: Landon Liboiron, actor.
Twenty-six-year-old Liboiron plays Michael Smyth on the epic period drama Frontier, in its second season on the Discovery channel here in Canada and available on Netflix in the U.S. The series, also starring Jason Momoa, chronicles the warring factions competing for territory during the expansion of the Hudson’s Bay Company in late 18th-century Canada.
Think Game of Thrones minus the white walkers and plus a lot of history: Frontier sports the same heavy fur wardrobe, a good dose of violence and gore, and even a handy map during the opening credits for those of us who couldn’t stay awake in Social Studies class.
Liboiron’s character is an Irish stowaway, a petty thief in the New World, a skill he insists he didn’t pick up during his boyhood in Jenner. “I may have had a couple of instances where I snuck something and got caught,” he laughs, “But in general I tried to stay out of trouble.”
It was “a unique and special way to grow up,” the actor says of the small ranching and farming community he called home. He attended school with only 21 kids from grades one through nine. The best aspect of growing up in an environment like that, he says, is “you have to accept people the way they are, or you don’t have any friends.”
So his friends included the jock, the cowboy, the computer tech guy, the super funny guy. “I was the weird artsy kid,” he laughs. High school was a culture shock: “What do you mean people don’t like each other?”
Liboiron says that “as soon as I could walk and talk” he wanted to be in a costume, wanted to be artistically engaged in some way or another. His parents – mom was also an artist – always supported him, and by the age of 12 he was heading west to Vancouver to meet with an agent.
“He said ‘Here’s the deal: I will represent you if you come out this summer and take acting classes’,” Liboiron says. “I loved it so much!” Every summer he and his mom would pack up the car and head to Vancouver. They lived with B.C. actors who became like extended family before returning to Alberta. “I would do the school year, just waiting around to get back,” he says.
The roles started coming. Liboiron starred as spoiled rich kid Declan Coyne on Degrassi: the Next Generation, and as recurring role as bad-boy Sam in the shot-in-Vancouver CW series Life Unexpected. He also starred for three seasons as hunky werewolf Peter Rumancek in Eli Roth’s Netflix series Hemlock Grove alongside Bill Skarsgard and Famke Janssen.
Before he knew it he had scored the role on Frontier, and found himself boning up on his Canadian history. “I don’t remember learning much,” about the period, he confesses (though he does remember Louis Riel, a century later, which Liboiron also thinks would make a great series). He bought 800-page “Empire of the Bay,” containing the entire history of the HBC, and started studying.
To get the Irish brogue just right he worked with dialect coaches and then headed to Dublin, where he walked around and listened, interacting with the locals. “I was walking past this bar and a guy standing outside said ‘Hey, I’ll give you a poem for a cigarette,’ and he quoted Yeats by heart. Then it became ‘a poem for a beer’…. I’m using my accent the whole time and he leans in and says ‘what part of Ireland are you from?’ I was afraid that he’d get mad but he got very passionate about trying to teach me.” Little moments like that made the trip for Liboiron.
“I’m kind of lucky in a way playing an Irish character during the 1700s: there’s no proof that I’m doing it wrong.”
Other than getting the accent right, Liboiron has been happy to watch other actors hone the skills necessary for their roles. Jason Momoa is a huge knife-thrower and has been teaching him a few tricks in between shots, and “there’s a place in Newfoundland where you can pay to throw axes, it’s fun,” he says, noting that co-star Jessica Matten, is a master axe thrower.
When he’s not working and throwing axes he’s trying his hand at the great outdoors. “It’s a new thing for me,” Liboiron admits, saying he didn’t take advantage of his years living in Vancouver at first, instead preferring “the dark corner of every bar.” Now you can find him hiking, or kayaking up Indian Arm. And writing. Liboiron doesn’t rule out directing one day, and has plans to start making his own short film.
But for now, Jenner’s most famous export is content. “I’m still amazed that I get to do this for my career, to work with people who inspire me,” he says. “Frontier is no exception: everyone on the cast is inspiring and lifts me up.”
