Fièvre

This film employs a multi-image technique to contrast scenes of natural grandeur--mountains, forests, and wildflowers filmed in Canada's national parks--with images of the polluted rivers and countryside that result from the heedless exploitation of the environment. Without words.

Director Murray Siples' love/hate letter to Vancouver weather captures both the mundane and the thrilling experience of living on the West (wet) Coast. The winter rain colours every aspect of city life, but people cope, wielding umbrellas like swords, clutching coats and hats against the constant deluge.

A personal take on one man's experience of the winter, Cold Fronts is a kaleidoscopic view of the collision point between nature and the city.

This film was produced in partnership with VANOC and Canada CODE for the 2010 Cultural Olympiad.

A documentary about the self-taught painter William Kurelek, told through his paintings. There are scenes of village life in the Ukraine and the early days of struggle on a prairie homestead and the growing comfort of family life. In Ontario, Kurelek paints the present life of Canada with the same pleasure he painted the old.

This documentary is about the conservation ethic in Canada that led to the national parks systems around the world. Includes interviews with the then-Minister of Natural Resources, Jean Chretien.

This 1950 documentary examines the penalties of forest destruction: fire, flood, wasted resources and barren lands. The film describes measures to preserve Canada's prime source of national wealth. Scenes of the wilderness created by stripping land of protective trees show the need to halt careless exploitation. Contrasting the slow process of re-seeding with the swift, modern methods of felling trees, the film urges planned cutting to ensure a protected yearly crop.

This short documentary investigates a perceived threat in the rural Maritimes following a deadly coyote attack in the Cape Breton wilderness. Locals react to the attack by concluding that a new super-species is infiltrating their communities: part coyote and part wolf. But is there any truth to this suspicion, or is the response the result of fear and rumours?

This short documentary looks at the deep gorge of the Fraser River, shadowed by the mountain ranges of British Columbia. It is a highway for the mysterious migration of the Pacific salmon. The river shallows appear red with the flailing fish as they push up-river to spawn and die. A natural wonder puzzling to the scientist, the fish migration of spring and summer provides renewed activity for fishermen and cannery workers.

An ecological study of plant and animal life on the Queen Elizabeth Islands in the Canadian Arctic. The film includes profiles of animals such as musk-oxen, lemmings, arctic hares and various forms of plant life.

This documentary describes the unfortunate legacy of the lone house on the prairie, an example of a dwelling entirely unsuited for the harsh winter or summer. We meet some builders and home owners experimenting with designs that are more energy efficient, such as the dome, the underground house and a ranch with wind, solar energy and methane gas from animal waste.

This documentary from the Shining Mountains series follows mountain guide, pilot and cinematographer Guy Clarkson on an ecological journey through the Rockies. Clarkson explores the area’s rock, ice, flora and fauna, which have, for eons, adjusted without complaint to every fluctuation in the natural order of things. Since the arrival of Europeans, however, the damage to ecosystems and tribes alike has approached a point of no return. From the glaciers of the Columbia Ice Fields, to the wolf packs of Yellowstone National Park, to the sacred hunting grounds of the Blackfoot nations, Clarkson finds perspective in the wisdom of the experts and elders who know this region best.

In this spectacular feature-length documentary, oceanographer Jacques Cousteau and an NFB crew sail up the St. Lawrence River to the Great Lakes on board the specially equipped vessel, the Calypso. They explore the countryside from their helicopter and plumb the depths of the waters in their diving saucer. They encounter shipwrecks, the Manicouagan power dam, Niagara Falls, the locks of the St. Lawrence Seaway and an underwater chase with caribou.