National Network for Equitable Library Service

Four centuries ago... did people listen in a different way than we do now? How different were the sounds that they heard? And can we tune into their auditory world? Tracking down ancient sounds that still exist, evoking some which have become extinct, this acoustic film imagines the noises of Elizabethan society through the ears of those who listened four centuries ago.

In 1880, two Inuit families from Labrador in northern Canada were exhibited in European zoos. Spectators flocked to the zoo exhibit expecting to see "exotics" from some "primitive race". What they found instead were Labradorimiut who spoke three languages, played German hymn tunes on violin and who were keeping their own ethnographic notes on the "uncivilised" Europeans. While spectators gaped at them, the Inuit gazed back. And one of them - Abraham Ulrikab - kept a diary.

A centuries-old caroling tradition takes place during Christmas and New Year's in a small Newfoundland outport. The carols and their tunes have been handed down through the ages in the community's oral tradition, and there is no written transcription of the melodies or their origins. For generations villagers have walked from house to house, entered darkened kitchens after midnight, and sung the carols as occupants listened in the darkness.

For more than 40 years, a retired British Army major-general made his home in St. John's, Newfoundland. For all that time, Major General Hugh Tudor shunned photographs and interviews, scrupulously avoided publicity and lived a deliberately quiet life in the shadows - far from his country, his wife and children, and very far indeed from the limelight. But he lived in fear. And he harboured a dark secret. One that would eventually cause an assassin to cross the Atlantic with a mission: to hunt him down.

100,000 years or so ago, the ancestors of modern humans walked out of Africa to populate the world. Some turned West to eventually fill up Europe, others turned East to populate Asia, Australia, and eventually the Americas. When the Vikings landed on the northern tip of Newfoundland a millennium ago, the descendents of those who turned East met the descendents of those who turned West for the first time in 100,000 years. Sybollically the human race finally came full circle; the human age of dispersal ended, and our modern age - the age of globalisation - began.

100,000 years or so ago, the ancestors of modern humans walked out of Africa to populate the world. Some turned West to eventually fill up Europe, others turned East to populate Asia, Australia, and eventually the Americas. When the Vikings landed on the northern tip of Newfoundland a millennium ago, the descendents of those who turned East met the descendents of those who turned West for the first time in 100,000 years. Sybollically the human race finally came full circle; the human age of dispersal ended, and our modern age - the age of globalisation - began.

100,000 years or so ago, the ancestors of modern humans walked out of Africa to populate the world. Some turned West to eventually fill up Europe, others turned East to populate Asia, Australia, and eventually the Americas. When the Vikings landed on the northern tip of Newfoundland a millennium ago, the descendents of those who turned East met the descendents of those who turned West for the first time in 100,000 years. Sybollically the human race finally came full circle; the human age of dispersal ended, and our modern age - the age of globalisation - began.

This playful report on the state of radio broadcasting in Canada travels from St. John's to Vancouver to the Canadian north, taking a critical look at how and why our radio sounds the way it does. It snoops into stations across the country, visits a radio training school, and asks radio critics to deconstruct the wireless world. Although the series was made in the 1990's, surprisingly little has changed two decades later.

This playful report on the state of radio broadcasting in Canada travels from St. John's to Vancouver to the Canadian north, taking a critical look at how and why our radio sounds the way it does. It snoops into stations across the country, visits a radio training school, and asks radio critics to deconstruct the wireless world. Although the series was made in the 1990's, surprisingly little has changed two decades later.

Tells the story of a tragic 19th-century shipwreck when a ship full of immigrants to the United States foundered off Cape Race, Newfoundland. The story is passed down through the generations of a family of German immigrants, as the descendents of the survivors travel to Newfoundland to track down the descendents of those who rescued their forebears.