1919 film gives insight into life in Canadian Arctic

RANDY BOSWELL
Postmedia News

A long-lost piece of Canadian cinematic history, rediscovered and repatriated from a British film archive 93 years after it captured some of the earliest footage of daily life in northern Canada, is being shown again in this country as part of a new documentary project that retraces a pioneering film crew’s 1919 journey to fur-trading posts on Baffin Island and other remote locations.

The original production, The Romance of the Far Fur Country, was shot at Hudson’s Bay Company bases across Canada just after the First World War. The silent film, funded by the company to celebrate the Bay’s 250th anniversary in 1920, was produced two years earlier than — and may well have inspired — the landmark documentary Nanook of the North.

But unlike Nanook, Far Fur Country had only limited public exposure before disappearing into the vaults of the British Film Institute, and was all but forgotten until Canadian film historian Peter Geller unearthed the visual treasure in the 1990s.

The documentary re-telling of the saga of the 1919 film, titled The Return of the Far Fur Country, is being spearheaded by Winnipeg filmmakers Kevin and Chris Nikkel of Five Door Films. The brothers have chronicled efforts in Britain to preserve the original reels of film and the return of the one-of-a-kind artifact to the Hudson’s Bay Company Archives in Winnipeg. And they are now capturing the reaction of modern-day audiences as parts of the original film are screened during a 2012 tour of Canadian cities and towns — including Edmonton this past weekend, and several northern communities in the coming weeks, such as Alberta’s Fort Chipewyan, that were featured in the original film.

A special showing in Winnipeg next month will mark the return of The Romance of The Far Fur Country to the city where it premiered nearly a century ago.

“It is exciting when a piece of history — a recording of history over 90 years old — can spark some community spirit and bridge the gap between past and present,” Chris Nikkel told Postmedia News.

“We’ve had amazing support from all the communities involved,” he added, describing a research trip to Fort Chipewyan as part of the modern documentary.

“The response we received was incredible,” he recalled, “with many people taking time out of their day to drive us around, walk us through the history of their community and to let us compare what archive materials they had with what we’d seen in the HBC film.”

Geller published an in-depth examination of The Romance of the Far Fur Country as part of his 2004 book on early Canadian films and photography, Northern Exposures. He not only rescued the vintage documentary reels from their hiding spot in the British archive, but also restored the HBC documentary to a place of significance in the history of Canadian film.

While he described the film as a piece of commercial propaganda that offered viewers romanticized notions about the relations between Hudson’s Bay fur traders and their aboriginal suppliers, he also noted that the production “was set apart as unique in its portrayal of ‘Scenes Never Shown Anywhere Before,’ ” — as it was promoted to audiences in the 1920s.

Among them were scenes showing an Inuit hunter at work on Baffin Island and a native family at “Fort Chip” maintaining a trapline.

Geller also explored the links between Far Fur Country and Nanook of the North, which has earned its creator, American filmmaker Robert Flaherty, acclaim as father of the documentary format.

“I don’t know if Flaherty saw The Romance of the Far Fur Country,” said Chris Nikkel. “But there are definitely tangible connections between the two films. They both at various times had been aboard the Nascopie when travelling in the Arctic, and would have docked at the same ports.

“I’ve never found a direct reference to Romance from Flaherty, however,” he added. “Flaherty would have left to shoot Nanook after the release of The Romance of the Far Fur Country, so you never know.”

Watch a clip from the film here.