Canada Vignettes

Discover this series of classic shorts exploring every facet of Canadian culture and history.

Collection Movies

Canada Vignettes: December Lights (1979)

01 January, 1979

Animated film of a traditional Franco-Manitoban tale that resembles the story of the first Christmas.

Canada Vignettes: The Horse (1978)

01 January, 1978

The story of the impact that the introduction of the horse had on the North American West.

Canada Vignettes: Canada's Snowbirds (1980)

01 January, 1980

This installment in the Canada Vignettes series depicts the Canadian Forces Air Demonstration Aerobatics team at work.

Canada Vignettes: News Canada (1978)

01 January, 1978

Historical events are related through the medium of simulated news broadcasting in 1878.

Canada Vignettes: Catapult Canada (1985)

01 January, 1985

This model-animation vignette takes a humorous look at the theme of transportation.

Canada Vignettes: Spence's Republic (1978)

01 January, 1978

An animated vignette about the role of Thomas Spence in the formation and demise of the Republic of Manitoba at Portage la Prairie in 1867-68.

Canada Vignettes: Log Driver's Waltz (1979)

01 June, 1979

A short illustrating Wade Hemsworth's folk song about a woman's admiration for the agility of her boyfriend, the log driver.

Canada Vignettes: Lady Frances Simpson (1978)

01 January, 1978

A humorous account of the pioneering journey of Lady Frances Simpson, along with her piano, from England to Manitoba.

Canada Vignettes: Holidays (1978)

01 January, 1978

A montage of watercolour images of the work and occasional play of a farm family.

Canada Vignettes: Voyageurs (1978)

01 January, 1978

An animated film about the hardships of voyageurs' lives in the early Canadian fur trade.

Canada Vignettes: Trees (1978)

01 January, 1978

Life in Canada is reflected by people's comments on trees as a tree is shown undergoing seasonal changes.

Canada Vignettes: Countdown (1981)

01 January, 1981

This vignette illustrates the variety of professions, people and technical procedures required by the filmmaking process.

Canada Vignettes: Alouette (1979)

01 January, 1979

A story about two symbolic characters who sway to the song Alouette.

Canada Vignettes: Ice (1982)

01 January, 1982

Ice cutting on the St. Lawrence River in the 1860s is illustrated in song and animated graphics.

Canada Vignettes: Calliope (1980)

01 January, 1980

A vignette on the travelling calliope (also known as steam organ), a musical instrument that produces sound by sending steam through large locomotive whistles.

Canada Vignettes: Moccasins (1979)

01 January, 1979

Close-ups of fine detail of the ancient skill of quillwork embroidery--brightly coloured geometric designs on high-ankled, Seneca-type moccasins. These moccasins are over one hundred years old, from the fabled Speyer Collection that was repatriated from Germany by the National Museum of Man in 1975.

Canada Vignettes: Dance (1979)

01 January, 1979

The metamorphosis of a map of Canada into human forms who share the natural resources to the rhythm of a dance.

Canada Vignettes: Logger (1978)

01 January, 1978

The history of the development of modern logging techniques on the British Columbia coast.

Canada Vignettes: Faces (1978)

01 January, 1978

Animated images showing the variety of people who live in Canada.

Canada Vignettes: Toronto (1978)

01 January, 1978

An animated film depicting the evolution of the City of Toronto from 1749 to 1978.

Canada Vignettes: Newfoundland (1978)

01 January, 1978

An examination of the Viking explorers who were the first Europeans to discover Canada.

Canada Vignettes: Skier (1978)

01 January, 1978

In this short vignette, skier Kathy Kreiner prepares for and participates in her Olympic gold-medal race at Innsbruck.

Canada Vignettes: Riverdale Lion (1979)

01 January, 1979

A visual interpretation of the poem "Riverdale Lion" by Canadian poet and essayist John Robert Colombo.

Canada Vignettes: Captain Cook (1978)

01 January, 1978

Two hundred years ago Captain Cook stopped briefly at Nootka Sound. This animated vignette depicts how he began the sea otter trade which led to the development of the Pacific north west.

Canada Vignettes: Land Bridge (1978)

01 January, 1978

This film describes the journey of nomadic Asian people to North America via a land bridge.

Canada Vignettes: Port Royal (1978)

01 January, 1978

This is the story of the first French settlers in North America, who spent their first winter on an island in the Bay of Fundy. Despite overwhelming hardships the survivors, joined by other new colonists, eventually established Port Royal, the foundation of Acadia and the Acadian people.

Canada Vignettes: Trading Post (1978)

01 January, 1978

An animated film about the Hudson's Bay trading post, and the relationship between fur traders and Indians.

Canada Vignettes: Instant French (1979)

01 January, 1979

This film promotes, in the best K-Tel tradition, a new device used to speak French.

Canada Vignettes: Woolly Mammoth (1979)

01 January, 1979

An animated film showing a woolly mammoth and its offspring. These animals lived on the Canadian tundra over ten thousand years ago.

Canada Vignettes: Dancing Dolls (1980)

01 January, 1980

An animated vignette. A lively dance of painted wooden dolls that twirl, swing and sway to gay music.

Canada Vignettes: Klondike Gold (1980)

01 January, 1980

This animated film illustrates the terrible journey, the back-breaking work, the exotic and gaudy city of Dawson, and the turmoil and triumphs of the 1898 Klondike gold rush.

Canada Vignettes: Arctic Mission (1980)

01 January, 1980

A team of divers assemble a big bubble in the Arctic Ocean.

Canada Vignettes: Wop May (1979)

01 January, 1979

This short animated film is about Wop May, one of Canada's leading bush pilots in the 1920s.

Canada Vignettes: Flin Flon (1978)

01 January, 1978

This short documentary vignette reveals the curious origin of the name of Flin Flon, Manitoba.

Canada Vignettes: Fashion Designer (1977)

01 January, 1977

A young designer, Selma Bryant-Fournier, starts her career in a large clothing manufacturing firm in Montreal. She hopes to design clothes for mass production that are beautiful, functional and affordable by everyone.

Canada Vignettes: The Egg (1979)

01 January, 1979

An egg desperately tries to prevent being hatched. In this animated short from the Canada Vignette series, learn how societies in evolution are often in danger of self-destruction.

Canada Vignettes: Arctic Seascape (1980)

01 January, 1980

A vignette exploring the depths of the Arctic Ocean.

Canada Vignettes: Indian Pipe (1979)

01 January, 1979

This carved ritual pipe from the Plains First Nations culture depicts the act of creation, alive in stone, Mother Earth in the embrace of Father Sky. Integral to the all-important sacred ceremonies, this personal possession expresses in strong imagery the vigour and joy of life itself.

Canada Vignettes: Métis Coat (1979)

01 January, 1979

The decorative pattern style of a traditional Metis coat is explored.

Canada Vignettes: Bill Miner (1978)

01 January, 1978

Bill Miner was a train robber in British Columbia at the turn of the century. This animated film depicts a disastrous episode in his career.

Canada Vignettes: Inuit Pipe (1979)

01 January, 1979

In this animated short from the Canada Vignette series, the camera explores, in exquisite detail, the daily hunt, fishing scenes and children at play as etched in black on an ivory Inuit pipe.

Canada Vignettes: Unity Pole (1979)

01 January, 1979

This vignette shows the ceremonial totem-pole raising by the Nisgha Nation at Ayanish.

Canada Vignettes: Delta Plane (1979)

01 January, 1979

This film is about the emotions that can lead one to take that jump into space necessary for hang gliding with a Delta Plane.

Canada Vignettes: Mussel Mud (1985)

01 January, 1985

A vignette using animation and live action to depict mussel farmers digging in the mud through the ice on bays and estuaries in Prince Edward Island.

Canada Vignettes: Bluenose 1921-1946 (1979)

01 January, 1979

A short history of Canada's greatest sailing ship.

Canada Vignettes: Onions and Garlic: A Hebrew Fable (1978)

14 April, 1978

This animated short tells a humourous Hebrew folk tale about a man's venture to introduce onions to a far away kingdom and a disreputable man's attempt to exploit that.

Canada Vignettes: The Move (1985)

01 January, 1985

In 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. 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.

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