Skip to content
Accessibility
Perspectives from the Prairies
To commemorate the 100th anniversary of influential, Saskatoon-based weekly newspaper The Western Producer, here’s a selection of films from the Canadian Prairies that delve deep into the lives and experiences of these unique communities.
-
ChuckwagonRobert Barclay 1964 9 minThis short documentary offers a ringside view of the chuckwagon race, star attraction of the world-famous Calgary Stampede. Once ponderous Percheron and Clydesdale draught thundered around the course. Now they are racers, and it takes a firm hand to guide such horsepower. -
StampedeClaude Fournier 1963 27 minThis short documentary offers a look at Stampede Week in Calgary and the show’s main performers – the cowboys and their horses. After the herds come thundering in, the focus shifts to one cowboy in particular, and we follow him as he travels from rodeo to rodeo, always reaching for the grand prize on the back of a bucking bronco.
-
Bronco Busters1946 10 minA short, classic documentary that takes us to Calgary's famous stampede of the 1940’s. In the rolling foothills of Alberta, the colts and horses run free with wild grace and speed, until it’s round-up time. Some are destined for the Calgary Stampede, the most exciting time for cowboys and ranchers who compete in the dusty ring to win at roping, bronco-busting, bulldogging a steer, and chuck-wagon racing, risking life and limb.
-
Standing AloneColin Low 1982 57 minPete Standing Alone of the Kainai Nation was more at home in the White man's culture than his own as a young man. However, confronted with the realization that his children knew very little about their origins, he became determined to pass down to them the customs and traditions of his ancestors. This hour-long film is the powerful biographical study of a twenty-five-year span in Pete's life, from his early days as an oil-rig roughneck, rodeo rider and cowboy, to the present as an Indigenous man concerned with preserving his Nation's spiritual heritage in the face of an energy-oriented industrial age.
-
Earth to MouthYung Chang 2002 41 minFilmed at the Wing Fong Farm in Ontario, this documentary follows the tilling, planting and harvesting of Asian vegetables destined for Chinese markets and restaurants. On 80 acres of land, Lau King-Fai, her son and a half-dozen migrant Mexican workers care for the plants. For Yeung Kwan, her son, the farm represents personal and financial independence. For his mother, it is an oasis of peace. For the Mexican workers, it provides jobs that help support their children back home.
-
The Grasslands Project - Life Out HereScott Parker 2016 11 minThis short documentary from The Grasslands Project brings a female perspective to the male-dominated ranching and farming industries. Women often have a strong voice in the operations, and some women have been running their own ranches for decades. For this collaborative documentary, the participants themselves chose the themes to be discussed and then interviewed each other. These women are deeply dedicated to their farms, ranches and families. They can ranch as well as a man... maybe even better.
-
The Grasslands Project - A Rancher's ViewScott Parker 2016 8 minThis short documentary from The Grasslands Project introduces us to rancher Miles Anderson. Anderson is in a tough spot. The land he ranches has been in his family for over a hundred years, but it’s bordered on three sides by an expanding Grasslands National Park and its conservation imperative. Cattle were once considered a major threat to grasslands integrity and the endangered sage grouse in the region, but, due in large part to Miles’ persistence, his cattle are now seen as part of the conservation solution.
-
The Grasslands Project - GenerationsScott Parker 2016 7 minThis short documentary from The Grasslands Project introduces us to nineteen-year-old Shawn Catherwood, who knew from a young age that he’d be a farmer. Many small communities are losing their young people, attracted to careers away from the farm. But it’s always been Shawn's dream to follow in the footsteps of his father, Ken. This film shows Shawn and his father as they navigate the coming generational change, while the audience is given insight into their deep love of the family farm.
-
This Borrowed LandBonnie Kreps 1984 28 minThe Peace River Valley in British Columbia is an area of rich farmland threatened by the construction of a hydro-electric dam. This Borrowed Land gives the women who farm the Peace the chance to voice their growing concern over the conversion of farmland to uses not related to the production of food. They ask: "Will we leave our children enough land to grow food on?" They are firmly committed to their lifestyle despite the difficulties, both concrete and imponderable. A film about agriculture, ecology, land misuse, and stout-willed farmers who happen to be women.
-
John Ware ReclaimedCheryl Foggo 2020 1 h 12 minPlease note: This film contains explicit language. Viewer discretion is advised.
John Ware Reclaimed follows filmmaker Cheryl Foggo on her quest to re-examine the mythology surrounding John Ware, the Black cowboy who settled in Alberta, Canada, before the turn of the 20th century. Foggo’s research uncovers who this iconic figure might have been, and what his legacy means in terms of anti-Black racism, both past and present. -
DrylandersDon Haldane 1963 1 h 9 minThis epic drama looks at the opening of the Canadian West and the drought that led to the Depression in the Thirties. It is the saga of a family who left Eastern Canada to stake their future in the Prairies. Principle roles are played by Frances Hyland and James Douglas.
-
Alias Will JamesJacques Godbout 1988 1 h 23 minThis feature-length documentary tells the incredible story of Ernest Dufault, a.k.a. Will James, a French-Canadian man who became one of the most legendary cowboys of the American West. For over 30 years, as he went from cattle rustler to ex-convict, he managed to keep his secret. And when he took up the pen, he became a Hollywood legend. Watch this compelling exploration of the powerful attraction the West still holds for young adventurers.
-
Death of a SkylineBryan Smith 2003 41 minA bulldozer tears into the side of a wooden grain elevator. The magnificent prairie landmark crumples to the ground. Once, more than 5,000 Alberta grain elevators graced the skyline. Today they're being razed to make way for modern concrete structures. Are these "prairie cathedrals" being destroyed due to obsolescence or corporate profit? In this film, a lively cast of characters reveals the story of these disappearing landmarks. The citizens of Mayerthorpe, Alberta fight to save their elevator as demolition day approaches. A Montana couple, Bruce and Barbara Selyem, race to photograph elevators across the continent before they are ripped down. Pete Kirk salvages grain-worn wood from demolition sites to build furniture and recycle a piece of prairie history. With archival film clips, interviews and dramatic footage of tumbling grain elevators, Death of a Skyline explores the history and significance of these familiar prairie structures. Wooden grain elevators have been at the heart of North America's economic, cultural and physical landscape for more than a century. As they continue to fall, will all that remains be memories of a vanishing way of life?
-
Grain ElevatorCharles Konowal 1981 15 minThis documentary short is a visual portrait of “Prairie Sentinels,” the vertical grain elevators that once dotted the Canadian Prairies. Surveying an old diesel elevator’s day-to-day operations, this film is a simple, honest vignette on the distinctive wooden structures that would eventually become a symbol of the Prairie provinces.
-
The MoveLarry Bauman 1985 5 minIn this short documentary from the Canada Vignettes series, a Saskatchewan grain elevator is moved across the snow-covered prairie to a new home after nearly a half-century of use; from Greenstreet to Marshall, Saskatchewan (about 20 miles away). The film follows the lifting and transporting of the 9-storey, 200-ton structure, and examines the feelings of the people as they witness the final passing of their town's one and only grain elevator.
-
Everyone's BusinessMary Armstrong 1982 20 minThe Churchill Park Greenhouse Cooperative in Moose Jaw, Saskatchewan, is a small produce business, much like any other trying to survive in a deteriorating economy. What makes it special is that eight out of the nine co-op members are disabled. Growing, washing, drying and packing vegetables, handling sales, bookkeeping, paying bills and sometimes postponing their own paycheques in order to see the co-op through hard financial times, these determined individuals are dynamic and self-sufficient members of society.
-
Grain Handling in CanadaGuy L. Coté 1955 24 minThis film details the functions of the Board of Grain Commissioners, under the provisions of the Canada Grain Act. Wheat is followed from its delivery and inspection at a prairie elevator until its final inspection as it is loaded onto ships at the Lakehead terminal elevators.
-
Wheat CountryRoger Blais 1959 20 minHere is a film showing how each spring, prairie farmers renew their gamble with wind, frost, drought, rust and hail to begin again the cycle that may bring a good, or a lean, year. This story of big-scale wheat farming is told by a farm woman whose sons represent the fourth generation to operate a Saskatchewan farm.
-
CorralColin Low 1954 11 minWestern ballads played on guitar are the only sounds used in this romantic portrait of a cowboy. He rounds up wild horses, lassoing one of the high-spirited animals in the corral, and then goes for a glorious plunging ride across the spectacular Rocky Mountain foothills of Alberta.
