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Fragments of Lost History

2000 50 min
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The yellowed pages of a travel journal, a letter unearthed by chance, photographs recovered from a company's dusty archives: These are but a few of the scattered materials used to reconstruct the fascinating and little known adventure of Revillon Brothers, a Parisian merchant of elegant furs, who came to Canada at the turn of the century to enter into the fur trade. But the adventure comes to an end in 1936 when Revillon's great rival, the Hudson's Bay Company, buys out the French company. Victorious, the Hudson's Bay Company, is the only of the two to be remembered in the …

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Fragments of Lost History

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The yellowed pages of a travel journal, a letter unearthed by chance, photographs recovered from a company's dusty archives: These are but a few of the scattered materials used to reconstruct the fascinating and little known adventure of Revillon Brothers, a Parisian merchant of elegant furs, who came to Canada at the turn of the century to enter into the fur trade. But the adventure comes to an end in 1936 when Revillon's great rival, the Hudson's Bay Company, buys out the French company. Victorious, the Hudson's Bay Company, is the only of the two to be remembered in the history books. In between the words of the few remaining witnesses to a lost history, in the memories of descendants of employees and in specialists' passion for the fragments recovered, a world long thought vanished is recreated in front of our eyes. In French with English subtitles.

  • sound editing
    Steve Munro
  • re-recording
    Steve Munro
    Tim Roberts

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Education

Ages 13 to 17
School subjects
In history class we all studied the trading activities of the Northwest Company and the Hudson’s Bay Company. Yet there is barely a mention of Révillon Frères. It would be interesting to compare the trading practices of the three companies and to understand their marketing methods, their land occupation policies and the indispensable treaties they made with the First Nations. Is there currently an industry in Canada that uses methods of domination to control its territory? What are the consequences of these commercial choices?
Fragments of Lost History
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