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Mining Communities (16)
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Baby This Is for YouJohn Taylor 1975 27 minThis short documentary is a portrait of the town of Stewart, British Columbia. Situated near the tip of the Alaska panhandle, Stewart has slowed down considerably since its heyday during the gold rush of the 1920s. But the Granduc copper mine still runs there, and the town is blessed with some of the most spectacular scenery of the province. Old-timers stay as long as they can shovel the snow, but younger miners often leave because of the isolation and boredom. Here, Stewart residents open up about the ups and downs of frontier living. -
Canadian DiamondsRené Bonnière & Pierre Perrault 1960 29 minWhen Cartier wintered at Cap Rouge near Québec City in 1641, he claimed to have detected diamonds in the surrounding hills. Was he so very wrong? Three centuries later, 15,000 men have come to excavate the iron mountains of the Canadian tundra where the rust of those diamonds still sparkles.
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Men of the Deeps, Cape BretonSandra Dudley 1978 2 minThis short vignette features coal mines in New Waterford and Glace Bay, Nova Scotia, along with traditional Cape Breton folk songs sung by Men of the Deeps - a miners' choral group.
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City of GoldColin Low & Wolf Koenig 1957 21 minThis classic short film from Pierre Berton depicts the Klondike gold rush at its peak, when would-be prospectors struggled through harsh conditions to reach the fabled gold fields over 3000 km north of civilization. Using a collection of still photographs, the film juxtaposes the Dawson City at the height of the gold rush with its bustling taverns and dance halls with the more tranquil Dawson City of the present.
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Eye Witness No. 31948 11 minThe film takes us to a dispersal centre in Halifax for a close-up view of some new neighbours--homeless Europeans, eager to contribute their skills to a new homeland in Canada. The second part of the film tours the mushrooming community of Yellowknife, six hundred and seventy-five miles north of Edmonton. In five years, its population jumped from five hundred to five thousand, turning a mining camp into a permanent mining town.
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Eye Witness No. 501953 11 minThe Glass Makers: One of the most exacting jobs in glass manufacture, the production of sheet glass, is shown in various stages from the pouring of raw materials to the slicing of three-storey-high sheets in a Toronto factory. Return of the Beaver: A government-inspired conservation project pays off for the Indigenous Peoples (Amos, James Bay area), who can again trap the once-depleted beaver population. Uranium City: A "uranium rush," reminiscent of the Trail of Ninety-Eight, is changing a wilderness area of northern Saskatchewan into a mushrooming industrial development.
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The Forest WatchersPeter Raymont 1975 25 minThis 1975 documentary examines the challenges faced by the Canadian forestry industry, such as deforestation, pest control and forest fire.
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The Hole StoryRichard Desjardins & Robert Monderie 2011 1 h 19 minIn this feature documentary, Richard Desjardins and Robert Monderie continue in the same provocative vein as their earlier Forest Alert, this time turning their lens on Canada's mining industry. Using striking images, rare archival footage and interviews, The Hole Story analyzes company profits and the impact of mining on the environment and workers’ health.
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The Last GlacierRoger Frappier & Jacques Leduc 1984 1 h 23 minSchefferville, a single-industry town, is closing down because the mine that gave it birth has ceased operation. There is a general exodus. The film singles out Raoul and Carmen, for whom the demise of the town signals the irrevocable breakdown of their marriage. Professional actors mix smoothly with the local population to heighten the documentary aspect of this drama. The resulting docudrama illustrates the vulnerability of the citizens of these artificially created towns. With English sub-titles.
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Mon oncle Antoine (Dubbed Version)Claude Jutra 1971 1 h 44 minThere was a time when the general store was the crossroads of life, a place where a boy could learn all he needed for the way ahead--especially when his uncle was the storekeeper, and also the undertaker, and the nephew often called upon to lend a hand. This film recalls such a store in a village in the asbestos mining area of Quebec in the early 1940s. The film presents a hundred-and-one vignettes of village life--all the bitter-sweet nostalgia with which a man might remember the events that thrust him into manhood. The action takes place on Christmas Eve--the one time of the year when the mine closed its doors, and the store bustled with humanity. For a few hours the villagers could forget their poverty and converge on the store for gossip and revelry. In the midst of it all was Uncle Antoine, customary ebullience and ribald humour whetted by occasional recourse to the gin bottle, and always somewhere in the background, his nephew Jacques taking it all in. But for Jacques this night was to bring sudden initiation into some of the harsher, cruder realities of life, even acquaintance with tragedy and death. Mon oncle Antoine is about a Quebec that makes no headlines but reflects the whole of life, the ebb and flow of hope and despair that might be in anyone's memory.
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Mon oncle Antoine (English Subtitled)Claude Jutra 1971 1 h 44 minClaude Jutra's sweeping portrait of village life in 1940s Quebec has been called one of the greatest Canadian films of all time. Recalling a time when the local general store was the crossroads of life, the film illustrates the way a young boy sees the world and those closest to him – first through the eyes of a teenager, and later, as events change him, through the eyes of an adult. In French with English subtitles.
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MinerRobin Spry 1966 19 minImpressions of a hardrock miner's life, suitable for the classroom, filmed at the Falconbridge Nickel Mine at Sudbury, Ontario, and showing also the increasing use of nickel in today's space age. Much of what is shown was filmed in the dim world far underground where, "in a bubble of air in a solid mass of rock," the miner drills the ore face.
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MalarticNicolas Paquet 2024 1 h 28 minTen years after an enormous open-pit gold mine began operations in Malartic, the hoped-for economic miracle is nothing more than a mirage. Filmmaker Nicolas Paquet explores the glaring contrast between the town’s decline and the wealth of the mining company, along with the mechanisms of an opaque decision-making system in which ordinary people have little say. Part anthropological study, part investigation into the corridors of power, Malartic addresses the fundamental issue of sustainable and fair land management.
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NormetalGilles Groulx 1960 17 minFilmed in the town of Normétal in northern Québec, this short documentary provides a first-hand introduction to life in a frontier mining community where all roads lead to the pithead. Dweller of two worlds, the copper miner's life is one of contrasts. A mile underground are the rock face, the clattering drills, the dust of explosions; above ground, all the familiar activities of a small town.
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Our Town FaroMitch Miyagawa & David Oppenheim 2004 8 minThis short film is about the small town of Faro located in the Yukon wilderness. In the 1970s, Faro was poised for success as a mining town but when metal prices plummeted and the mine shut down, the place was destined to become a ghost town. But Murray Hampton, a mining engineer who became the mayor, was determined to bring things back to life.
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That's the PriceMichael Scott 1970 40 minWhat happens to two dying coal towns in British Columbia when an American corporation provides a contract for millions of tons of coking coal? The film follows the consequences for the towns of Natal and Michel, suggesting that industrial growth has its price, especially with regard to the environment.
