Melnick, Cruikshank and Bouchier Weave Magic on the Bay

The Wilson Centre in Cana­dian His­tory offi­cially launched an awe­some new learn­ing tool destined for the classrooms of local schools last night. The People and the the Bay is an his­tor­ical envir­on­mental doc­u­ment­ary cre­ated by Nancy Bouch­ier, Ken Cruikshank and the wiz­ards from Pixel Dust Stu­dios This stun­ning pro­duc­tion brings a viva­city, zest, and prob­ing depth to explore the unique rela­tion­ship between the Hamilton har­bour and the lives of people in the area and the city itself. The occa­sion was cel­eb­rated at the Canada Mar­ine Dis­cov­ery Centre, a uniquely appro­pri­ate site for present­ing this pro­duc­tion. The centre sits on the har­bour and is an inter­pret­at­ive museum ded­ic­ated to Canada’s rich aquatic heritage.

Nancy Bouch­ier, one of the co-authors/presenters of the pro­gramme sug­gests that when most of us think of Hamilton we pic­ture, ” a suc­cess­ful but grimy, indus­trial city.” The back­drop to this is steel mills, steam­ers, traffic and smokestacks. But, as Ken Cruikshank, our other guide asserts, it’s much more than this and Hamilton is a city redis­cov­er­ing its rich her­it­age by recon­nect­ing to the har­bour. Over the next 45 minutes Ken and Nancy bring to life the rich­ness of past con­nec­tion to Bur­l­ing­ton Bay and leave us with a hope­ful appre­ci­ation for the con­tin­ued revital­iz­a­tion of the body of water that has been so cent­ral to the growth of the area. The nat­ural beauty of the har­bour area is high­lighted — an aspect of the Hamilton har­bour area that is far too easy to miss. You have to walk the trails, sail in the har­bour and maybe pro­duce a doc­u­ment­ary pro­duc­tion, to truly find this beauty. When you immerse your­self in the area you can find it, but it does take effort. It may be easier to do this today, as the DVD con­veys, but it is still all too often hid­den behind a veil of smog, or cam­ou­flaged by industry that scares one away from want­ing to get too close. Our com­ment­at­ors do get close to the nature of the har­bour. They walk the trails, wander the parks and cemeter­ies, and in Bouchier’s case canoe the bay to bring a new appre­ci­ation to viewers.

Pixel Dust Stu­dios and dir­ector Zach Mel­nick have woven their magic to deliver this amaz­ing historical-environmental doc­u­ment­ary. I wax gush­ingly, but hon­estly admit that this pro­gramme is craf­ted with a spe­cial touch. The cine­ma­to­graphy is superbly shot, com­posed and rendered with ori­ginal music. They com­bine his­tor­ical re-enactments, with stock and his­tor­ical foot­age to cre­ate an enga­ging and per­tin­ent pro­duc­tion that is test­a­ment to their abil­ity not only as film­makers, but as craftspeople who work with his­tor­ical mater­ial with tre­mend­ous sens­it­iv­ity. The DVD is presen­ted in both SD and HD formats as well, giv­ing the viewer an added visual treat.

It will be valu­able to fol­low the classroom adop­tion and use of this DVD. As these are dis­trib­uted to local his­tory teach­ers for use in their classrooms, the true bene­fits and impact of the product will be recog­nized. It has been authored with this use in mind. The dur­a­tion of the pro­gramme is geared towards being able to show within a single class period. It is nicely seg­men­ted into short chapters and these can be used to sup­port spe­cific events and study foci. Addi­tion­ally, and I appre­ci­ate this one, one of the nav­ig­a­tion options is spa­tial. The par­tic­u­lar chapters have been mapped to their loc­a­tions around the har­bour. All we are miss­ing is a sep­ar­ate chro­no­lo­gical timeline view. The wealth of options hope­fully will allow var­ied uses for the product and for con­veni­ent enhance­ment of exist­ing cur­ricula. Will the addi­tion lead to the dis­cus­sion that the pro­du­cers clearly hope to engender? I hope and believe it will, and look for­ward to dis­cov­er­ing how it does work. One thing is of little doubt, this product raises the bar for tools to aid in teach­ing Cana­dian his­tory in the classroom. I fer­vently hope that this is only the first of such pro­duc­tions that can bring a com­pel­ling and media-competitive edge to teach­ers who have to battle the per­vas­ive­ness of block buster his­tor­ical epics that lead stu­dents to con­clude that Cana­dian his­tory is boring.

Last year I had the priv­ilege to assist Dr. Viv Nelles, the LR Wilson Chair, and per­son respons­ible for ini­ti­at­ing this pro­ject, when he presen­ted the Intro­duc­tion to Cana­dian His­tory course. He re-imagined the present­a­tion of what is a staple course for his­tory depart­ments in Canada and cre­ated a fresh and dynamic offer­ing for his stu­dents. His innov­at­ive approach com­bined per­tin­ent themes with an appre­ci­ation for the broader con­text of the inter­ac­tion between man and nature. Judging from my inter­ac­tion with the stu­dents, engaged them in a course many expect to be a yawn fest. This went so far as one stu­dent con­fid­ing to me that she had actu­ally suffered from night­mares fol­low­ing his eerie telling of tales of the loup-garou and its role in Québe­cois soci­ety. You know you are reach­ing stu­dents when… This new teach­ing tool for high school his­tory teach­ers smacks of this ded­ic­a­tion to innov­a­tion and revital­iz­a­tion of the teach­ing of our history.

I was plan­ning to blog after attend­ing the DVD launch last night. I rumin­ated over words and mes­sages and con­tin­ued to do so as I drove to the office this morn­ing. And that’s when it hit me. As I drove along the 403 I passed many of the points high­lighted in the pro­duc­tion. We can all too eas­ily miss the con­text of our every­day life. Tasks and places are rooted in our shared exist­ence with oth­ers and with the past. The his­tor­ical con­text deep­ens out under­stand­ing, our appre­ci­ation and hope­fully our sens­it­iv­ity to place. We can be sens­it­ive to their care, sym­pathy, stew­ard­ship and struggles with prob­lems that we face today and con­tinue in their efforts. Through pro­duc­tions like ‘The People and the Bay,’ we are made aware that these pro­cesses that are longer than our life­times and often memor­ies, but that aware­ness leads to new appre­ci­ation not just of super­fi­cial beauty, but can inspire the the strength and ded­ic­a­tion to build on the efforts of our ancestors.

Note: The most beau­ti­ful sequence for me is the 6 spans cross­ing the Dejardins canal cap­tured in the image above, and presen­ted at the begin­ning of chapter 9. The slow pro­gres­sion through the ancient water­way and the per­fect light­ing con­di­tions really res­on­ated with me.

Update: The Hamilton Spec­tator has great cov­er­age of the launch.