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Life in Early Canada Series (Ages 5-8)

Life in Early Canada Series (Ages 5-8)

This series brings together seven stories vividly depicting daily life in pre-Confederation Canada.

Films in This Playlist Include
Emily’s Journey
Henry Settles in Upper Canada
Homesteading on the Prairies
Jamie Really Liked to Eat
The New Schoolhouse
The New Schoolteacher
Woolly’s Gift

  • Emily's Journey
    1995|13 min

    Emily uses more than ten different forms of transportation to travel from her home in pioneer Ontario and meet her cousins in Quebec in the 1850s. She paddles a canoe, rides a horse, drives a farm wagon and guides a timber raft as she takes a number of days to complete a journey that would be no more than an afternoon's drive today. Part of a series of children's pioneer stories.

  • Henry Settles in Upper Canada
    1995|10 min

    After a long, hard ocean voyage across the Atlantic, twelve-year-old Henry and his mother arrive in Upper Canada. Uncle Ned meets them and takes them to rest up. Homesick, Henry takes a turn around the village and discovers what village life is like in a well-established farming community. He soon settles in and brings some good news to his mother.

  • Homesteading on the Prairies
    1995|11 min

    Set in Manitoba in the 1890s, the story traces an Ontario farm family as they move west in search of cheap land. They experience travel on the recently completed CPR, build a sod house, battle a prairie fire and celebrate their first harvest.

  • Jamie Really Liked to Eat
    1985|6 min

    Jamie Really Likes to Eat shows the life of a young boy living on a homestead around 1830 and how many pioneer parents depended on their children to help them gather and prepare the family's food. Jamie fishes, plucks ducks, and traps rabbits. He helps his mother churn butter, collect eggs and bake bread. Children can compare the food Jamie eats with the food they eat - some of it the same, like buckwheat pancakes and blueberry muffins, and some of it different, like rabbit stew and duck pie.

  • The New Schoolhouse
    1995|9 min

    A story of village life in Ontario in the 1850s as seen through the eyes of three young children. The whole community participates in the building of the new schoolhouse and its opening day celebrations.

  • The New Schoolteacher
    1995|9 min

    The New Schoolteacher describes the life of Ella, a young teacher in the 1850s. Not much older than the senior students in her charge, she is responsible for everything in the school from teaching all grades, all subjects, to discipline and housekeeping. It is a difficult job but Ella proves that she can do it and starts a baseball team too.

  • Woolly's Gift
    1985|6 min

    Woolly's Gift takes youngsters step by step through the making of fabric for Annie's new dress. Students see Annie and her family shear Wooly, a mother sheep, and wash the wool. They see the wool carded, spun into yarn, dyed and woven, how leftover wool was bartered, and the daily activities of a pioneer girl.