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Immigration and Settlement (7)
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Dreams of a LandRobert Doucet 1987 8 minAnimated drawings illustrate the life and explorations of Samuel de Champlain, founder of Québec City. The film follows Champlain from his first ambitions to map the New World and discover a passage to the sea, to his later dreams for New France. -
First WinterJohn N. Smith 1981 26 minThis historical drama features the first winter spent in Canada by a family of Irish immigrants deep in the Ottawa Valley. The year is 1830. Because the father is working in a logging camp, the mother has sole charge of the family. Sickness overtakes her, and she dies. The children are left on their own to survive. The film graphically illustrates the enormous hardships endured by the first settlers who had to cope with a climate with which they were unfamiliar. A beautiful, moving film.
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FootprintsCarole Poliquin & Yvan Dubuc 2014 1 h 25 minThe renowned actor Roy Dupuis discovers how our historic encounter with the First Nations was a determining factor in the construction of Quebec’s collective indentity.
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Henry Settles in Upper CanadaEva Szasz 1995 10 minAfter a long, hard ocean voyage across the Atlantic, twelve-year-old Henry and his mother arrive in Upper Canada. Uncle Ned meets them and takes them to rest up. Homesick, Henry takes a turn around the village and discovers what village life is like in a well-established farming community. He soon settles in and brings some good news to his mother.
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Mission of FearFernand Dansereau 1965 1 h 19 minThe story of the Jesuit martyrs who lived with the Wendat converts in the region near what is now Midland, Ontario. The film is of wide interest since it reconstructs a period of Canadian history, especially of Indigenous life, at the very beginning of European settlement. The village and the Jesuits' buildings are exact models from archeologists' reconstructions. The story is based on the Jesuit Relations, the actual journals of mission life that still make for thrilling reading.
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The Voyageurs1964 19 minThis short film tells the tale of the men who drove big freighter canoes into the wilderness in the days when the fur trade was Canada's biggest business. The film recreates scenes of the early 19th century with a soundtrack by an all-male chorus.
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Ville-MarieDenys Arcand 1965 27 minToday it is the city of Montreal, but 3 centuries ago the tiny band of missionary founders called it Ville-Marie, the holy city of Mary. This film goes back to its beginning and those who felt called to plant an oasis of Christianity in the North American wilderness. In an imaginative, at times almost surrealistic, way the film recalls the highborn company from France, and shows what survives of Ville-Marie in the Montreal of today.
