Barkerville, British Columbia
(part of the Ghost Towns of Canada series)
Maureen Kelleher/Leigh Badgley
In Sight Film & Video Productions
23 min. 2002
Fuelled by true stories of gold nuggets the size of fists, 30,000 prospectors made their way up the Cariboo Trail in the 1860s, staking thousands of claims along Williams Creek. One of these individuals, a former bargeman from England, would use an innovative shaft-mining technique to strike it rich. Billy Barker and many other early prospectors made their fortunes in this hard northern country, a place that boasted fantastic amounts of gold, but because of its isolation, often had no food.
Barkerville would come to be known not only for money-making opportunities, but also for its cultural openness. Almost half of the town's population were Chinese, migrants coming north from the California gold rush who adjusted well to the tough living conditions. In addition, Justice Matthew Bailey Begbie, among other notable decisions affecting minority populations, convicted an American for assaulting a Native man based solely on the testimony of other Natives. This was a first in British Columbia's history.
Subject(s): British Columbia, Mining
Chuck Olin/U'mista Cultural Society
28 min. 1983
Also available on DVD
In Alert Bay, British Columbia, 1980 marked the opening of the U'mista Cultural Centre. This world class museum was created after years of struggles by the Kwakwaka'wakw people to bring home their sacred masks that were seized by the Canadian government from Dan Cranmer's potlatch on Village Island in 1921.
This film documents the political struggles of the First Nations people of Alert Bay for the right to continue their traditions. It also celebrates the opening of the U'mista Cultural Centre and the community's ongoing efforts to pass on the knowledge of their culture and language from the elders right through to adults and children in school.
Box of Treasures is a good companion documentary to POTLATCH...a strict law bids us dance, which provides a more detailed history of the potlatch in Canada.
Subject(s): British Columbia,
Indigenous people–Kwakiutl (Kwakwaka'wakw)
In 1947, the Brooklyn Dodgers signed Jackie Robinson, ending an era of discrimination in professional baseball. The effect on what was then known as “The Negro Leagues” was that a lot of talented African-American ball players were out of work. Some of them came north to play in the Manitoba Senior League as well as the ManDak League, a group of rural and urban teams around Manitoba and North Dakota that included Winnipeg, Brandon, Carman and Minot. The period they played, from 1948 to 1954, was the Golden Era of Prairie Baseball. Yet despite the adulation and fan support, there was an undercurrent of suspicion and resentment. The racism that pervaded US society had its expression here, too.
Lois Bentley of Brandon, Manitoba was a teenager and recalls the unsurpassed quality of these games. This documentary follows her efforts to have two outstanding players who played for the Brandon Greys–Dirk Gibbons and Armando Vazquez–inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame. Her efforts succeeded in June 2006 and represent a first and a victory for decency, persistence and recognition of excellent in the art of baseball.
Subject(s): Black culture, Community dynamics, Manitoba, Sports–Baseball
Interviews with Chinese-Canadians whose parents and grandparents built the railroad-and indeed the nation-give life to this poignant documentary that retells and rethinks a vital chapter in Canada's history.
Subject(s): British Columbia,
Chinese-Canadians, Immigrants
& Immigration, Labour
History, Transportation
Cassiar, British Columbia
(part of the Ghost Towns of Canada series)
Maryvonne Micale/Leigh Badgley
In Sight Film & Video Productions
23 min. 2002
The story of Cassiar is one of shifting economics in the outside world and changing communities within. Opening in 1952, the Cassiar asbestos mine would become one of world's best known. In fact, it was the town's chief export that lined Neil Armstrong's space suit for his first historic lunar step.
From the outset, the growth of Cassiar was mirrored by the settling of a nearby Native community called “The Village”. In the earliest years, the two communities were vastly different, one having all the latest amenities, the other almost none. A tragic accident in 1970, however, would force the mine to remedy disparities for The Village and its Kaska/Tahltan people. By the 1970s, with a new awareness of the health risks associated with asbestos, the future of the Cassiar did not look bright.
The story of Cassiar is also one of a community that flourished even after its closing. A decade after the town was torn apart and trucked away, the “Cassiar: Do You Remember?” web site kept the community spirit alive and 800 former residents attended a reunion in 2001.
Subject(s): British Columbia, Mining
Tony Chan
26 min. 1985
This documentary researches Chinese communities in rural Saskatchewan by tracing
the popularity of Chinese cafes. Using archival photographs, the video presents
the experiences of Chinese immigrants from the turn of the century to the present.
Subject(s): Chinese-Canadians,
Immigrants & Immigration,
Restaurants, Saskatchewan
Creighton, Ontario
(part of the Ghost Towns of Canada series)
Maureen Kelleher/Leigh Badgley
In Sight Film & Video Productions
23 min. 2002
By the close of the 20th century, the company town was a fading memory on the Canadian landscape. Dwindling mineral deposits and hard times devastated some company towns, while mine owners in others areas, like Creighton, dismantled towns when they no longer wanted to shoulder the expense of supporting an entire community.
The town of Creighton was built in the early 1900s by INCO, a short time after they began to mine nickel in the region. By 1916, war demands for tanks, ships, guns and bullets had the mine thriving and the ranks of its employees were doubled to 1200. World War II and the Korean War gave the town similar boosts and, at its peak, Creighton's population numbered 3,000. By 1986, Creighton was INCO's most productive mine, but nevertheless, the company gave residents one year to vacate.
Depot Harbour, Ontario
(part of the Ghost Towns of Canada series)
Maureen Kelleher/Leigh Badgley
In Sight Film & Video Productions
23 min. 2002
On the shores of Parry Island in Georgian Bay, Canadian lumber giant John Rudolphus Booth built Depot Harbour, the terminus for his private rail line that transported timber and linked grain farmers in the west to ports on the Atlantic. Initially, he purchased land from the island's Ojibway reserve and later expropriated more territory from the band using a little-known provision of the Railway Act. But despite these acrimonious beginnings, the town of Depot Harbour would grow into a tight-knit community in which the Ojibway people and diverse immigrant groups lived together happily.
By 1900, Depot Harbour handled more than 35% of Canada's grain shipments and boasted a population of 3,000. For $16 million, Booth sold his railway, the largest private line in Canada, and his departure would signal the beginnings of Depot Harbour's demise. The last vestiges of the town would remain, however, until a dramatic fire at the close of World War II, in which stores of cordite sparked explosions visible for a 10-mile radius.
Robert McTavish/Merelda Fiddler
Non-Inferno Media Production
47 min. 2003
Fiddler's Map follows a young Métis woman as she maps out what it means to be Métis in Canada today. Merelda Fiddler, descendant of mapmaker Peter Fiddler, surveys Métis history, culture and politics while grappling with her own sense of family and identity. Among the many individuals she meets on her journey, Fiddler visits John Lagimodiere, whose forebears fought next to Louis Riel at Batoche. Publisher and editor of Eagle Feather News, he also facilitates Aboriginal awareness seminars detailing the progress of Métis people since their infamous defeat. She speaks with Maria Campbell—a writer and filmmaker best known for her revealing bestseller Halfbreed—about the political impact of telling Métis stories. This sharp and incisive documentary moves across Saskatchewan, home to one of the largest aboriginal populations in Canada, examining the racism and resentment that once led many families to repress their heritage. The result is both an overview of Métis life in Canada since the fur trade and a personal quest to rediscover one's roots.
Subjects: History, Indigenous people–Métis, Racism, Saskatchewan
Martin de Valk/Doreen Jensen/Jean Wassegijig/Chiaro Productions
48 min. 2002
One hundred years ago, the Fraser River Gold Rush opened the door for hundreds of Euro-Americans seeking their fortune. For the indigenous people of British Columbia, this overnight stampede triggered the ebb of a way of life forged on barter and trade.
A Forgotten Legacy: Spirit of Reclamation explores the participation and adaptability of British Columbia's Native people as a new economy overtook the land. Although their traditional cultural practices and beliefs were denigrated, these indigenous people brought their skills and knowledge to the emerging workforce. This is a story exploring the overwhelming contribution made by Native workers, laborers and entrepreneurs to a burgeoning British Columbia.
Subject(s): British Columbia, Labour History, Indigenous people
From Hand to Hand:
The Legacy of Charles Edenshaw,
Pts 1 & 2
Part of the Ravens
and Eagles: Haida Art series
Jeff Bear/Marianne Jones
Ravens and Eagles Productions
46:30 min. 2003
Perhaps the most prolific Haida artist to have ever lived, Charles Edenshaw played an enormous role in preserving his people's ancient art forms at a time when their very survival was in question. He endured the enormous challenges of his era—the onslaught of disease, the growing influence of Christianity, and the prohibition of the potlatch by the Canadian government—to become a great innovator in Haida art.
In this powerful documentary, his descendants Robert Davidson, Carmen Goertzen and Christian White, celebrated artists in their own right, discuss his legacy as Haida elders have passed it down to them. Art historians from UBC's Museum of Anthropology and Seattle's Burke Museum add insights culled from their research.
Subject(s): Artists–Charles Edenshaw, British Columbia, Indigenous people–Haida, Sculpture
Ghost Towns of Canada
(A 13-part series)
Maryvonne Micale/Maureen Kelleher/
David Vaisbord/Leigh Badgley
In Sight Film & Video Productions
23 min. each • 2002
From coast to coast, Canada's ghost towns are a record of triumph and pain, pioneer stories embedded in the rotting wood frames and overgrown gardens of these forgotten burgs. Whether it's the tiny Atlantic outport that once protected itself from pirates' pillaging, the Québec quarantine station that greeted 98,000 immigrants during a single ghastly summer of typhus, the Ontario community that boasted the world's first underwater silver mine, or the BC asbestos town whose chief export lined Neil Armstrong's space suit for his first lunar step, Ghost Towns of Canada explores the history of high hopes and hard labour that characterize this country's beginnings.
This 13-part series introduces the bold characters who pinned their futures on the new world, often winning a niche in the world's temperamental markets, but losing hope of any enduring legacy to the sweeping changes of time. Ghost Towns of Canada reunites one-time residents with the towns they once called home, uncovering the human stories that lay hidden beneath the peeling paint.
View detailed descriptions of each episode:
Subject(s): Labour history
Ghost Town Trail, Saskatchewan
(part of the Ghost Towns of Canada
series)
David Vaisbord/Leigh Badgley
In Sight Film & Video Productions
23 min. 2002
It's been estimated that half of all towns that ever existed in Saskatchewan are now ghost towns. A southern stretch of highway reveals just how true this is. The Ghost Town Trail is dotted with tiny farming communities, once thriving, now all but abandoned. In their heyday, these towns—in particular, Brooking and Scotsguard—were buoyed by a spirit of pioneer optimism. In the early 1900s, the Canadian government had offered free land to settlers, an opportunity that beckoned to many farmers south of the 49th parallel. The region promised a fabulous wheat harvest and, in the first two decades of farming, it delivered. But the Depression and the long drought of the 1930s ended high hopes, as farmers lost land and families went hungry. While a fraction of them managed to hang on to their farms, it would not be forever. Over the next 70 years and even today, the disappearance of farming towns in south Saskatchewan continues.
Subject(s): Agriculture, Saskatchewan
Grosse Île, Québec
(part of the Ghost Towns of Canada series)
Maryvonne Micale/Leigh Badgley
In Sight Film & Video Productions
23 min. 2002
During the height of the 1847 potato famine in Ireland, an enormous wave of ships would cross to Canada, carrying an immigrant population riddled with typhus. Over 98,000 of these immigrants would land at Grosse Île, a quarantine station downriver from Québec City equipped with a single hospital of 200 beds. Within weeks, the hospital would house 700 patients, while the island's harbour would be home to dozens of vessels forced to keep aboard at least as many dead and dying. Many other immigrants were thrown overboard or abandoned on isolated beaches by ships hoping to make it through inspection at the Grosse Île station.
Today on the island, a 40-foot Celtic cross marks the final resting place of 5,000 Irish immigrants, all those who never recovered from the deadly disease to re-start their lives in the new world. Their harrowing story has outlived both the typhus epidemic and the quarantine station itself.
Subject(s): Québec
Ireland's Eye, Newfoundland
(part of the Ghost Towns of Canada series)
Maryvonne Micale/Leigh Badgley
In Sight Film & Video Productions
23 min. 2002
The outport community of Ireland's Eye first cropped up in the late 1500s after England claimed fishing rights to Newfoundland's rugged waters. Its earliest inhabitants were abandoned there, seasonal workers whose unscrupulous captains left them ashore to make room for more fish on the return sailing to England. But despite an uncertain start, the little town survived and thrived through harsh weather and a total absence of amenities, not to mention a brief stint protecting their hard-earned profits from the pillaging of notorious pirate Peter Easton.
By the 1940s, still without cars, electricity and plumbing, Ireland's Eye had altered little from its beginnings. Like hundreds of other outports along the eastern sea board, however, the community could not survive the political and financial shifts that accompanied Newfoundland's entry into Confederation. Declared “uneconomical” by the Canadian government, Ireland's Eye was all but emptied during the 1960s as part of the Fisheries Household Resettlement program.
Subject(s): Fishing, Newfoundland
David McIlwraith/Mary Armstrong/Betsy Carson/Rina Fraticelli
Wild Zone Films
52 min. 2005
Also available on DVD
"The Lynching of Louie Sam is a gripping
story that captures the conflict between Natives and non-natives, Canadians
and Americans and highlights the different approaches to Native people in the
two countries. It speaks to the past and the present and will be a wonderful
addition to courses in Canadian history, social studies, law, and Native studies
in schools and universities. It is a great film!"
– John Lutz, University of Victoria, Department of History
In late February 1884, a lynch mob of 100 American men crossed the border into British Columbia, forcibly removed a 14-year-old Native boy from the custody of a Canadian constable, rode south a few miles and hanged him from a cedar tree.
For the Stó:lo First Nation, a people living along the dramatic gorges of BC's Fraser River, this tragedy is a defining moment in their history. In this film, they come together to tell the tale of the only documented case of a cross-border lynching in Canadian history. It's a story they've had to wait 100 years to tell.
Based on new historical research by Keith Thor Carlson, commissioned by Stó:lo Nation, The Lynching of Louie Sam examines the ongoing struggle of First Nations communities to have the wrongs of the past examined in a meaningful way. The film played a key role in the March 2006 decision by Washington State's Lieutenant Governor and House of Representatives to pass a resolution acknowledging this injustice.
Subject(s): British Columbia, Indigenous people–Coast Salish, Indigenous people–Stó:lo, Politics, United States
Nordegg, Alberta
(part of the Ghost Towns of Canada series)
Maryvonne Micale/Leigh Badgley
In Sight Film & Video Productions
23 min. 2002
In the early 1900s, German-Jewish businessman Martin Cohen discovered rich coal deposits in a remote corner of Alberta's Big West Country and began to fashion plans for an elaborate garden city, based on those of his European homeland. He envisioned a humanitarian home for his workers, no miserable mining town, but a community blessed with all the modern amenities and aesthetics. In fact, he was so enamoured with this idea, he changed his name to Nordegg, “north corner” in his native tongue, and gave the name to the town he built. Though he realized the dream of his well-constructed and comfortable community, his success was to be short-lived. The War to End All Wars pitted his birth nation against his new country and, when he refused to become a British subject, he was promptly forced into exile. Martin Nordegg could only watch from abroad while his town became one of Alberta's largest mines but then fell into gradual decline.
Paula Kelly/Liz Jarvis
Buffalo Gal Productions
44:00 min.
2001 • closed captioned
Available on DVD and VHS
The Notorious Mrs. Armstrong follows the political career of a lesser known yet extremely important figure in Canadian history, Helen Armstrong. History has largely ignored her groundbreaking women’s movement activities which helped change labour legislation in favour of female workers. Armstrong, a working class mother, was well known in Winnipeg in the early 1900s where she was described as a radical agitator and often ended up in jail for her endeavours. “Outraged and outrageous” was one way to describe the woman who was notorious for her fight for equality for women in the work place. Her in-destructible optimism carried her through very difficult times. She was one of the organizers of the historic 1919 Winnipeg General Strike, which saw 35,000 workers on the picket line for six weeks, until it ended in a volatile confrontation known as Bloody Saturday. Armstrong’s continued actions as a union organizer helped persuade the government of Manitoba to institute the Minimum Wage Act and give livable wages to women.
Subject(s): Gender equality, History, Labour history, Leadership, Manitoba, Politics, Women–work
Ocean Falls, British Columbia
(part of the Ghost Towns of Canada series)
Maureen Kelleher/Leigh Badgley
In Sight Film & Video Productions
23 min. 2002
Once a community of 5,000, today the Ocean Falls population has been whittled down to a mere 40. One of the province's best know pulp and paper towns, it was first settled in 1906 by Japanese workers. Over the next several decades, the town developed twin communities, white and Japanese, that co-existed peacefully but didn't frequently mix. The political climate of the Second World War would alter that forever, but the mill would continue to boom. By the early 1980s, the economy waning, the provincial government would close the Ocean Falls mill despite residents' vigorous protests. The debate ended when the government pushed ahead and demolished most of the town's buildings.
Subject(s): British Columbia, Forestry
Paradox of Attribution
(Part of the Ravens
and Eagles: Haida Art series)
Marianne Jones/Jeff Bear
Ravens and Eagles Productions
24 min. 2002
Haida art had reached a very sophisticated stage of development by the time of the Haida people's first contact with Europeans. Nearly every household item was adorned with carved or painted crests. When explorers and prospectors first viewed the Haida heraldic crests, the newcomers were nearly all taken aback. Missionaries saw the art as the work of the devil. But ethnologists were looking for material culture they would use in museum dioramas in New York and Chicago.
There has been debate in academic circles about who created turn of the century masterpieces of Haida art. In a discussion about the old Masters, Paradox of Attribution re-visits some of the artists in a final roundup of Haida artists defining Haida art. It features many historical masterpieces in this sweeping overview of Haida art. And director Marianne Jones, herself a Haida eagle clan member, takes viewers on a tour of some of the old village sites where art once stood on the shores. She poses an interesting dilemma: Does attribution really matter? Or is it best left as a paradox?
Subject(s): Artists, Indigenous people–Haida
Dennis Wheeler
U'mista Cultural Society
54 min. 1975
Also available on DVD
This internationally acclaimed film has been digitally restored through a special project of the Audio-Visual Heritage Association of BC, made possible by funding through the Heritage Policy Branch of the Department of Canadian Heritage with the Assistance of the Audio-visual Preservation Trust of Canada.
Over the centuries, the Kwakwaka’wakw First Nations of the Northwest Coast developed a sophisticated culture based on the ceremonial giving away of surplus wealth. This was the basis of an indigenous social and economic ecology. With the arrival of European settlers intent on the accumulation of property, traditional Native society came under attack. For years, the Canadian government outlawed the potlatch, crushing a unique culture and seizing its artifacts to be studied and “protected.”
Directed by Dennis Wheeler and produced by Tom Shandel, this film was created in collaboration with the Kwakwaka’wakw First Nations of Alert Bay, British Columbia who retained editorial control. It is based upon historical research compiled by the U’mista Cultural Society of Alert Bay and features important testimony from Kwakwaka’wakw elders. The film is narrated by Gloria Cranmer Webster. Her father Dan Cranmer came into conflict with the Canadian government when he held a potlatch in 1921 and people were arrested. The Kwakwaka’wakw First Nations continue to hold the potlatch today, in the tradition of their ancestors.
Subject(s): British Columbia, Law, Indigenous people–Kwakiutl (Kwakwaka'wakw)
Directed by Pierre Desjardins
Produced by François Savoie
Connections Productions
45 minutes • 2005
Available on DVD and VHS
A charismatic and driven man, Louis Robichaud became the first Acadian elected
as premier of New Brunswick in the upset Liberal victory of 1960. At a time
when the province's rural and Acadian communities were in the grips of a long
depression, Robichaud made it his mission to eliminate the well-entrenched divide
between rich and poor, English and French, rural and urban centres. His "Program
of Equal Opportunity" was a massive overhaul of all aspects of government,
in particular municipal services, property taxation, education and bilingualism.
It sparked division across the province and generated powerful enemies among
the province's elites—notably industrial giant K.C. Irving, whose vast
empire employed one in five New Brunswick workers.
This comprehensive documentary traces Robichaud's tumultuous career.
His childhood in one of the poorest counties in Canada, his days
as an intellectual upstart in the seminary, his early political
life stumping the province's remote areas to create a groundswell
of voter support, all set the stage for his high-profile battle
to reform New Brunswick. "P'tit Louis" was a great favourite
with the people, but he paid an enormous personal price for his
political ambitions. Robichaud's last interviews shortly before
his death, as well as commentary from former allies and foes, academics,
writers and personal friends, create a stirring portrait of one
of Canada's most dynamic political heroes and his unparalleled legacy
of change.
Subject(s): Acadian, New Brunswick, Politics
"If two partners can't learn to sleep together, then they must certainly get separate beds."--Québec Premier ministre René Lévesque, La Presse, May 1963
Award: Best Television program - Open Television, Canadian Association of Journalists' Awards for Investigative Journalism
Subject(s): Politics, Psychology, Québec, Satire
Rowley, Alberta
(part of the Ghost Towns of Canada series)
Maryvonne Micale/Leigh Badgley
In Sight Film & Video Productions
23 min. 2002
The fate of Rowley, Alberta is not unique. An obscure name on a map and a few sepia photos is all too often the sole legacy of many prairie towns, built and beloved by the first settlers but unable to recover from the Depression's torrid years. The real story behind this particular little town is its repeated revival. Twice in the last half-century, Rowley has vanished and returned. First in the 1940s, a new vitality freshened the fading town in the form of Chinese immigrant, Sam Leung. For years after it opened, Sam's Restaurant became the hub of the community. Forty years later, after its proprietor had passed away, the two-dozen remaining residents hosted a series of break-and-enter parties at Sam's to raise money for back taxes. Once they'd bought the establishment, restored and re-opened it, tourism began to build and movie crews discovered the town's quaint charm. Even a brief stint as “Rowleywood”, however, was unable ensure a return to richer times.
Subject(s): Agriculture, Alberta
Sandon, British Columbia
(part of the Ghost Towns of Canada series)
Maryvonne Micale/Leigh Badgley
In Sight Film & Video Productions
23 min. 2002
In its earliest years, at the close of the 1800s, the heart of this silver town in southeastern BC was Johnny Harris, a smooth-talking Virginian who made an unscrupulous but legal claim to the entire town while other men were absent mining in the surrounding mountains. This lapse in ethics aside, Harris would prove to be a generous benefactor to the burgeoning community, even paving streets in silver ore. At its peak, the town boasted 5,000 residents and was the alcohol, gambling and sex capital of Canada's own Wild West. Despite producing more wealth than the California, Klondike and Cariboo gold rushes combined, Sandon's silver mines would go into decline by the turn of the century. Unexpectedly, in the 1940s, the shrunken town would again briefly expand because of the internment of Japanese-Canadians, hundreds of whom were relocated from the west coast under provisions of the War Measures Act.
Subject(s): British Columbia, Mining
Insight Film and Video Productions
46 min. 2001
Secret War: The Odyssey of the Suffield Volunteers is the story of four Canadian soldiers-four of more than two thousand-who between 1941 and 1945 volunteered to be `human guinea pigs', testing deadly mustard gas at a military camp in Suffield, Alberta.
This chilling story about the suffering Canadian soldiers endured so Canada could be prepared for a gas attack, takes us beyond the initial testing and injuries. Most of the men suffered symptoms from mild to severe in the immediate post-war period. Initially, the government denied the fact that they had even been stationed at Suffield. However, the wall of silence began to crumble in the early 1990s when, under pressure from the public and some veterans, the government slowly began to respond to their demands for acknowledgement.
Subject(s): Peace/War
Silver Islet, Ontario
(part of the Ghost Towns of Canada series)
Maureen Kelleher/Leigh Badgley
In Sight Film & Video Productions
23 min. 2002
In the late 1860s, between the shores of Lake Superior and a tiny barren island just offshore, the Montreal Mining Company discovered some of North America's richest silver ore. Silver had been a royal metal reserved for the Crown, but once the designation was lifted, mining began on Silver Islet. The mine was sold in 1870 to new American owners, Major Alexander Sibley and his brilliant partner William Frue. Frue rose to the challenge of extracting ore from beneath Lake Superior, one of the stormiest bodies of fresh water on the planet. He constructed the world's first underwater silver mine. It flourished and construction of the town of Silver Islet began.
Despite constantly battling to keep the lake's tumultuous waters at bay, the mine eventually yielded $2 million dollars worth of silver. By the mid-1880s, however, production fell and the mine closed, leaving the town of Silver Islet to survive on a smaller scale with the help of a new industry—summer tourism.
Jim Hamm
94 min. 2002
Also available on DVD
The Spirit Wrestlers exposes the dramatic and troubling story of the century of Doukhobor life in Canada. It portrays successive governments' efforts to forcibly assimilate a unique, proud and stubborn group of Russian immigrants to this country. The film lays bare the sometimes brutal ways that governments and state agencies sought to subdue generation after generation of Doukhobors. In particular, the initiative by the British Columbia government to bring to heel a small group of pacifist and communalist Russian immigrants by seizing their children and holding them for six years behind wire fences at a residential school. The consequences were still apparent years later when some of Canada's worst acts of terrorism were committed by a radical Doukhobor faction, the Sons of Freedom.
Subject(s): British Columbia, Doukhobors, Immigrants & Immigration, Politics
Vera Graaf / Max Scott
24 min. 2003
A stranger appears on the remote Canadian island of Grand Manan and creates quite a stir. He motors around in a boat that resembles a sardine can. For his living quarters, he chooses a defunct old herring smokery on the harbour. Over time, he turns the place into a museum. Much to the astonishment of the islanders, he exhibits personal memorabilia next to the old tools and machinery used for smoking fish years ago. When the stranger begins to invite artist friends from abroad to create works of art with found objects, Grand Manan gets its first look at contemporary art. Some like it, some don't—but no one is indifferent to the Sardine Museum and Herring Hall of Fame that lures islanders and tourists to the small village of Seal Cove and has turned the stranger into its keeper of memories.
Subject(s): Artists, Fishing, Labour history, New Brunswick
Using a deft combination of family stories, interviews with fellow actors and directors, film clips and poignant re-creations, the film takes us inside the life of Chief Dan George from his early days as a longshoreman, logger and country entertainer to his later career in acting and nomination for an Academy Award for his role of Ol'Lodgeskins in Arthur Penn's groundbreaking film Little Big Man.
Writer and director Loretta Todd is a skilled Cree/Métis filmmaker who goes far beyond celebrating Chief Dan George's film and television career. She skillfully weaves a narrative that examines the whole man, from his deep and abiding love for his wife, Amy, to his determination to provide for his family and his sense of humour. The result is a warmly personal and emotional film.
Award: Best Documentary, American Indian Film Festival
Subject(s): British Columbia,
Film Studies,
Indigenous people
Val Jalbert, Québec
(part of the Ghost Towns of Canada series)
Maryvonne Micale/Leigh Badgley
In Sight Film & Video Productions
23 min. 2002
In 1901, when Damasse Jalbert first laid eyes on a 236-foot waterfall near Lac-St-Jean, he saw more than just sheer beauty. An astute capitalist, Jalbert knew that newspapers everywhere were paying top dollar for pulp and this breathtaking cascade would provide him with the means to produce it. Respected throughout the region for his strong Catholic faith and his fatherly approach to his workers, Jalbert was able to finance the building of the mill and town without ever approaching a bank. He raised $150,000 from area farmers, merchants and professionals.
Though Jalbert would die before the project was complete, graced with his name, Val Jalbert would prosper into the 1920s, a model mill town with all the amenities of larger cities. An eventual shift in the industry, however, would reverse Val Jalbert's fortunes and see the mill close.
This fascinating look at the small Québec paper town chronicles not only its halcyon years, but also the labour-intensive process of harvesting trees, transporting them downriver and eventually converting them to pulp.
Yahgu
dang ang: "To Pay Respect"
(Part of the Ravens
and Eagles: Haida Art series)
Marianne Jones/Jeff Bear
Ravens and Eagles Productions
22 min. 2002
Many of the Haida cultural treasures housed currently in museums around the world were looted from old and vacated Haida village sites. In their zeal, early explorers to Haida Gwaii took away grave goods and human remains. This was one of the most questionable acts of science and continues to perplex aboriginal people today.
Today the Haida are beginning the process of repatriation and the first to return are the ancestors themselves. Yahgu dang ang: "To Pay Respect" looks at Haida efforts to reclaim ancestral human remains. Although community members initially encountered resistance, they eventually brokered arrangements with local and Canadian museums. The first to cooperate was the national museum in Ottawa. In this episode of the Ravens and Eagles: Haida Art series, the Haida prepare to rebury the remains of seven of their ancestors in Skidegate and viewers witness a traditional burning of food . They are also introduced to two of the committed individuals one encouters time after time in the story of repatriation.
Subject(s): Indigenous people–Haida, Spirituality
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