Rare HBC fur-trade films to be screened

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A rare collection of Hudson's Bay Co. films has a new home in Manitoba after being nearly forgotten in a British vault since the 1950s.

The permanent "repatriation" of 13 black-and-white films from London's British Film Institute to a specially designed cold vault at Winnipeg's HBC Archives took place last August.

It was officially announced Monday at the Manitoba Archives, where the fur-trade company's archives are housed. The British Film Institute has returned the 40 reels of film to the HBC, where they originated, because of their heritage value to Canada.

Most of the recovered footage is from The Romance of the Far Fur Country, a silent fur-trade travelogue commissioned by the HBC in anticipation of its 250th birthday in 1920. It was shot in Canada's North in 1919. That predates Robert Flaherty's famous documentary Nanook of the North by two years.

"It's a monumental return," says Winnipeg filmmaker Kevin Nikkel, who is taking the historic footage on a northern tour and making a documentary about it.

The extraordinary cache also includes footage shot in 1920 of a historical pageant at Manitoba's Lower Fort Garry, as well as pageant participants arriving by boat at The Forks.

A free 30-minute screening titled Nitrate Treasures, followed by a Q and A, is being held on Wednesday at 7 p.m. at Cinematheque.

Because many seats are reserved and it's expected to sell out, two additional free screenings are being held at 7 p.m. on Feb. 22 and Feb. 29 at the Manitoba Archives, 200 Vaughan St.

The nitrate footage has been transferred to HD video, with a contemporary musical score.

In 1919, Nikkel says, the HBC hired two New York filmmakers to journey for nine months to remote forts where indigenous trappers sold their furs. Lugging hand-cranked cameras, the filmmakers at times travelled by dogsled and canoe.

One of the most compelling scenes in the 30 minutes to be screened here shows the chief of the Chipewyans sending a message to the King of England through an interpreter. As translated in the title cards, the chief says the white man is breaking the treaty with his people and there should never be a closed season for "the Indian" to hunt.

The two-hour Romance of the Far Fur Country had its world premiere at Winnipeg's Allen Theatre (later the Metropolitan) in May 1920. It was screened in other Canadian cities and England, then stowed in the HBC Archives, at that time in London.

In 1956, the HBC Archives asked the British Film Institute to store it because the nitrate stock was flammable and likely to deteriorate.

In the 1990s, film historian Peter Geller went in search of the landmark movie and found it in pieces in the London vault. Then, a couple of years ago, Winnipeg filmmakers Kevin and Chris Nikkel entered the picture. The brothers' company, Five Door Films, is working with the Edmonton-based Geller on a painstaking restoration of the two-hour movie.

The Nikkels are also making a feature-length documentary, targeted for completion by the end of 2013, called The Return of the Far Fur Country. It will tell the story of the film returning to Canada and being screened for northern audiences.

With the support of arts grants, the Nikkels are retracing the original filmmakers' footsteps. They're taking the 1919 footage on a tour to the remote communities where it was shot -- but never screened -- and seeking the reactions of residents, particularly elders.

Two weeks ago, they undertook the first leg in northern Alberta and found that the aboriginal communities embraced the project. "We had one elder recognize his great-uncle, a trapper, in the footage. Another fellow recognized his grandfather working at the counter of the HBC store."

alison.mayes@freepress.mb.ca

Video credit: Hudson's Bay Company Archives

Republished from the Winnipeg Free Press print edition February 14, 2012 C1