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Prairies (30)
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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. -
Cornet at NightStanley Jackson 1963 14 minBased on a short story by Sinclair Ross, this short film recalls rural life on the Prairies in the 1930s. In the film a farmer's young son, sent to town to hire a man for the harvest, readily accepts when an itinerant trumpet player, down on his luck, begs a chance. He is hardly the kind of man the boy's father had in mind, but that night his trumpet speaks from the shadows and everyone pauses to listen.
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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.
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Cattle CountryBeth Zinkan 1944 9 minThis short 1944 documentary offers a portrait of ranching in the foothills of southern Alberta. Exciting scenes of great herds being rounded up and moved to summer feeding grounds suggest the large scale on which this business is run, while segments on spraying, feeding and shipping illustrate some of the less dramatic jobs involved in bringing Canadian beef to the world's tables.
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Canadian Screen Magazine No. 81946 7 minExercise Musk-Ox Finishes Three-Month Arctic Trek: A fifty-man team completes its research expedition to the Arctic. War-born Seaweed Industry Assures Peacetime Prosperity: In Yarmouth, Nova Scotia, Irish moss is harvested and processed for use in the manufacture of a variety of products. Canada's Flying Wing Passes Flight Tests: Tests on the flying wing--an aircraft without motor or tail--are conducted in Ottawa by the National Research Council. Unique Design for Living Solves Housing Shortage: Veterans who are University of Saskatchewan students, and their families, live in barracks that have been converted into community apartments.
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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?
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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.
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Eye Witness No. 341951 11 minEye Witness was a series of short monthly newsreels produced by the NFB during the post-war period. Each installment included several short reports on issues dear to Canadians. In episode No. 34, we see: The Fireman Is a Grocer, which takes a closer look at the voluntary fire department in Kentville, Nova Scotia; Artistry in Clay and Cloth, which introduces us to a Czech artist skilled in ceramics and a group of artists from Montreal who create novel designs with silk screens and colourful dyes; and Winter Morning, which offers a glimpse of a day in the life on the Wiebe farm in Saskatchewan.
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Eye Witness No. 401952 11 minThe Eye Witness series is a collection of short documentaries featuring Canadian news stories from the 1940s and '50s. This segment includes Prairie Harbour: The Port of Flowing Grain, a look at the lakehead cities of Fort William and Port Arthur, funnelling centres for western grain on its way to world markets. In Modern Miracle: Surgery is Safe, the appendectomy of patient Henry Brown demonstrates the advances in modern medicine. Co-Op Carpenters: Home-Made Community illustrates the principles behind the cooperative housing program for veterans in Carleton Heights near Ottawa.
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Epidemic Foot and Mouth Disease: Saskatchewan, 1952Larry Gosnell 1952 16 minA documentary report on the 1952 outbreak of foot-and-mouth in Saskatchewan. It details the effects of the disease on livestock and explains how the epidemic was brought under control. Made for the federal Department of Agriculture.
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Eye Witness No. 271950 11 minHalifax's Junior Bengal Lancers: The youngest riding team in Canada gives a spectacular exhibition of horsemanship. Where the Big Ones Grow Bigger and Bigger: Great Slave Lake gives sport to the businessman who comes in by air to battle with the fighting lake trout. From Jobs and Schools to Swimming Pools: Twenty girls of the Peterborough Ornamental Swimming Club give an exhibition of synchronized swimming. Alberta Blitzes Prairie Killers: Alberta farmers hunt and shoot coyotes, predators of livestock and poultry, from swift-flying light aircraft.
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Eye Witness No. 151949 11 minThese vignettes from 1949 cover various aspects of life in Canada and were shown in theatres across the country. Subjects included here are: Man-Made Niagara: the construction of the Des Joachims hydro plant on the Ottawa River adds to Ontario's power resources. Irrigation Revitalizes Dust Bowl: In the southern Alberta drylands, the St. Mary's River is being harnessed to provide life-giving irrigation for prairie crops. Underwater Harvest: Lobster season in New Brunswick provides choice seafoods for epicurean tables.
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Farm ElectrificationEvelyn Cherry 1946 21 minA farming community organizes to obtain hydro power under Manitoba's rural electrification plan. Energetic canvassing wins over those hesitant to share, for the good of all, the initial expense. The abundant return in comfort, convenience, efficiency and financial advantage is described in concluding sequences.
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The Fight for True FarmingEve Lamont 2005 1 h 29 minIn this documentary, crop and animal farmers in Quebec, the Canadian West, the US Northeast and France offer solutions to the social and environmental scourges of factory farming. Driven by the forces of globalization, rampant agribusiness is harming the environmemt and threatening the survival of farms. The proliferation of GMO crops is a further threat to biodiversity as well as to farmers' autonomy. In Europe as well as North America, a current of resistance bringing together farmers and consumers insists that it is possible - indeed imperative - to grow food differently.
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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.
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The HutteritesColin Low 1964 27 minThe followers of religious leader Jacob Hutter live in farm communities, devoutly holding to the rules their founder laid down four centuries ago. Through the kindness of a Hutterite colony in Alberta, this film, in black and white, was made inside the community and shows all aspects of the Hutterites' daily life.
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In Her Chosen FieldBarbara Evans 1989 28 minThis striking documentary pays tribute to the importance of women farmers to the agricultural economy, and recognizes the invisible subsidy their labour provides to consumers. Farm women from various parts of Canada, ranging in age from their thirties to seventies, are shown running a variety of farm operations, including mixed farming in Saskatchewan, wheat farming in Manitoba and dairy farming in Ontario. The women also share their views on agriculture today and their attempt to deal with economic and social challenges.
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In the Garden on the FarmKristin Catherwood 2020 8 minAs social-distancing measures set in during the COVID-19 pandemic, Kristin Catherwood moved back to her family’s farm to stay with her widowed father. Spring brings the usual urgency to plant the year’s crops, and Kristin starts thinking about planting her vegetable garden—a garden that brings deep memories of her mother and grandmothers.
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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. -
Luckily I Need Little SleepKathleen Shannon 1974 7 minKathy worked as a nurse in Greece and then came to Canada. She and her family live in northern Alberta, where they are developing a farm. Kathy works outside the home as a nurse, sews for the children, maintains the house, and helps with the farm work.
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Nonoonse Anishinabe Ishichekewin Ka Kanawentank1980 10 minWestern pioneers knew that sugar could be made from the sap of the Manitoba maple. But the trees were small, the sap was thin, and the tastier product of Québec and Ontario was cheap and easy to get. The settler soon turned away from the arduous annual harvest and the Manitoba maple became just another tree. But not for Nonoonse. Forty years ago her grandmother brought her to Sugar Island. Since then she has returned every spring to gather the sweet sap. Filmed on Lake Manitoba, near the Ebb'n'Flow Reserve, Nonoonse is both a clear description of sugar-making and a quiet statement on the importance of the tradition to the Saultaux of the region. (Bilingual: English and Saulteaux.)
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New Home in the WestDallas Jones 1943 14 minThis short film traces the journey of the first Ukrainian settlers in Canada. Seeking freedom and opportunity, they came here and became instrumental in helping to open the Canadian West. Though they had little in the way of money or machinery, they had courage and faith in the future and were willing to put in the hard work. Every member of the family helped in the struggle, and in time, their efforts paid off.
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Prairie WomenBarbara Evans 1986 45 minThis film illustrates the struggles of Canadian prairies women to achieve a more just and humane society within the farm movement and at large. During the early 1900s, women on the prairies looked for ways to overcome their isolation. Out of the resulting farm women's organizations grew a group of women possessing remarkable intellectual abilities, social and cultural awareness, and advanced worldviews.
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Rice HarvestNorma Bailey & Bob Lower 1980 11 minThis short documentary explores how the First Nations staple of wild rice is exported as a luxury food thanks in part to bush pilots. Follow the families of the Pauingassi band as they comb the reedy shores with brooms, paddles and baskets for manomim (wild rice).
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Soil for TomorrowLawrence Cherry 1945 43 minAn account of the depletion and erosion of soil on the Canadian prairies, and of the restoration measures taken under the Prairie Farm Rehabilitation Act of 1935.
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We're Here to StayIan McLaren 1974 27 minThis short documentary examines how 7 farm families in Lestock, Saskatchewan, have pooled their resources so that rising operating costs will not drive them off their land. By pooling their land, their equipment, their livestock, and farming as a cooperative, they are able to live as they choose, to maintain their standard of living, and even to have some spare time left over to enjoy. An engaging look at a novel approach to big-scale farming.
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Water for the PrairiesLawrence Cherry 1951 18 minThis 1950s' film looks at the measures to preserve water flow from the Rocky Mountains. With the steady falling of the water table, the exploitation of timber stands and the recession of glaciers, water conservation was an urgent concern of the Alberta and federal governments.
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Windbreaks on the PrairiesEvelyn Cherry 1943 21 minThis short film serves as a cautionary tale to farmers who recklessly cut down trees on their land. When prairie farmers engaged in this practice to facilitate plowing, they discovered that the trees had served as windbreaks protecting top soil from erosion. The Dominion Department of Agriculture's experimental station at Indian Head, Saskatchewan, cultivated acres of young trees for distribution to farmers.
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Waterfowl - A Resource in DangerDon Virgo 1964 16 minThis nature documentary shows the immense flocks of birds, their habits and their dependence on the wetlands of the Prairies. The Prairies are the incubators of vast numbers of Canadian waterfowl, principally ducks, but as more land is drained and cultivated there are fewer breeding grounds. Produced by the NFB for the Canadian Wildlife Service.
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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.
