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.

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.

The tragic battlefield loss that ended the dreams of a nation. This documentary recreates the "war to end all wars", when the independent nation of Newfoundland raised a regiment to fight for Britain in World War One, when the Regiment was virtually wiped out on July 1, 1916 in France, and when the repercussions of that loss later catapulted Newfoundland into losing its independence and becoming a province of Canada.

The evolutionary origins of human storytelling. Analysing stories is territory traditionally claimed by writers, critics, and university scholars. But recently, evolutionary psychologists have begun to look at the human propensity for storytelling from a scientific perspective. Why are we humans such suckers for a good story? Literary critics find the answer in story structure, characters, and plotlines. The literary Darwinists find the answer in evolution.

The evolutionary origins of human storytelling. Analysing stories is territory traditionally claimed by writers, critics, and university scholars. But recently, evolutionary psychologists have begun to look at the human propensity for storytelling from a scientific perspective. Why are we humans such suckers for a good story? Literary critics find the answer in story structure, characters, and plotlines. The literary Darwinists find the answer in evolution.

This piece was created to mark the tenth anniversary of an environmental catastrophe in the North Atlantic. The gigantic Northern Cod Stock discovered by European fishermen five centuries ago prompted the settlement of Newfoundland and was known as the 'Greatest Fishery in the World,' In July 1992 the once-massive fish stocks were discovered to have collapsed and a two year fishing ban was introduced. 30,000 fishery workers were thrown on the dole. A decade later fish stocks have not rebounded and the fishery remains closed.

The story of a wayfaring music. A trio of Canadian folk musicians get together with their English counterparts to trace the roots of traditional melodies that travelled across the Atlantic with early settlers centuries ago. In North America the tunes evolved and changed. Now these musicians bring them back to see how they fit in their original "home." The documentary travels with them to Devon for a series of concerts and comparisons, tracing the relationship between old and modern fishing cultures on both sides of the Atlantic through a fascinating musical genealogy.

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.