A Slow Hello

Western ballads played on guitar are the only sounds used in this romantic portrait of a cowboy. He rounds up wild horses, lassoing one of the high-spirited animals in the corral, and then goes for a glorious plunging ride across the spectacular Rocky Mountain foothills of Alberta.

This short documentary offers a portrait of life on a cattle ranch, for both its human and animal inhabitants. Featuring sprightly music by folk singer Pete Seeger and narration by theatre actress Frances Hyland, the film is shot through the seasons on a large Canadian cattle ranch near Kamloops, British Columbia. With hundreds of cows and calves on the ranch, there’s no shortage of work to be done: soil cultivation and crop maintenance are taken care of by seasonal ranch hands while the resident cowboys—“anxious guardians”—brand and breed their bovine charges.

This short documentary offers a look at Stampede Week in Calgary and the show’s main performers – the cowboys and their horses. After the herds come thundering in, the focus shifts to one cowboy in particular, and we follow him as he travels from rodeo to rodeo, always reaching for the grand prize on the back of a bucking bronco.

This short 1944 documentary offers a portrait of ranching in the foothills of southern Alberta. Exciting scenes of great herds being rounded up and moved to summer feeding grounds suggest the large scale on which this business is run, while segments on spraying, feeding and shipping illustrate some of the less dramatic jobs involved in bringing Canadian beef to the world's tables.

From the ranchlands of Alberta, a picture of the cattle drive as it is today, when big cattle-liners truck the livestock to receiving stations on the summer range. But archival photographs tell how it was in the old days when the cowboy was king, driving his herd by easy stages to distant, greener pastures. Big sky, undulating hills and distant mountains still hold the spell and romance of the West that old-timers remember.

Boys from the city get a taste of the life of a cowboy. The film catches the enthusiasm and humour of this Alberta riding holiday in which 'tenderfeet' quickly become horsemen, ride herd, help brand calves and, best of all, spend a night in the teepees of the Kainai (Blood).

This documentary follows two country veterinarians through their daily rounds, from sterile clinic to farm paddock. Thirty thousand miles of house calls a year is routine for doctors Vic Demetrick and Reg Maidment, whose patients include just about any creature that hops, trots, swims or flies.

Halifax's Junior Bengal Lancers: The youngest riding team in Canada gives a spectacular exhibition of horsemanship. Where the Big Ones Grow Bigger and Bigger: Great Slave Lake gives sport to the businessman who comes in by air to battle with the fighting lake trout. From Jobs and Schools to Swimming Pools: Twenty girls of the Peterborough Ornamental Swimming Club give an exhibition of synchronized swimming. Alberta Blitzes Prairie Killers: Alberta farmers hunt and shoot coyotes, predators of livestock and poultry, from swift-flying light aircraft.

Viewer Advisory: This film contains scenes of animal slaughter..

This feature documentary tells the story of a young couple’s year-long experiment in raising their own meat. On the abandoned farm property they just bought, they decide that if they’re going to eat meat, they should raise it themselves. Over 4 seasons, they get to know the animals, discover their personalities, treat them with respect and eventually slaughter them. Animals takes us deep into the heart of the animal-human relationship, with all its contradictions.

A short, classic documentary that takes us to Calgary's famous stampede of the 1940’s. In the rolling foothills of Alberta, the colts and horses run free with wild grace and speed, until it’s round-up time. Some are destined for the Calgary Stampede, the most exciting time for cowboys and ranchers who compete in the dusty ring to win at roping, bronco-busting, bulldogging a steer, and chuck-wagon racing, risking life and limb.

The NFB’s 72nd Oscar®-nominated film.

In 1909, a dapper young remittance man is sent from England to Alberta to attempt ranching. However, his affection for badminton, bird watching and liquor leaves him little time for wrangling cattle. It soon becomes clear that nothing in his refined upbringing has prepared him for the harsh conditions of the New World. This animated short is about the beauty of the prairie, the pang of being homesick and the folly of living dangerously out of context.