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Boats (21)

  • The Boat that Ian Built
    The Boat that Ian Built
    Andy Thomson 1974 28 min
    The amazing success story of the Laser, a thirteen-foot sailboat built by Ian Bruce of Pointe Claire, Québec, and of Performance Sailcraft, the company he formed to produce and market it. Simply designed, durably built of fiberglass, it is a pleasure craft that has brought summer sailing within everyone's reach on coastal and inland waters around the world.
  • Bluenose 1921-1946
    Bluenose 1921-1946
    Richard Todd 1979 2 min
    This very short documentary from the Canada Vignettes series provides a short history of the Bluenose schooner, a celebrated racing ship and hard-working fishing vessel that became a provincial icon for Nova Scotia and an important Canadian symbol in the 1930s.
  • Drowning in Dreams
    Drowning in Dreams
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    Tim Southam 1997 1 h 12 min
    Drowning in Dreams enters the dark and illusory world of one man's obsession. A story of greed and redemption, guilt and death, the film charts the course of a fatal dream as Fred Broennle plumbs the chilly depths of Lake Superior in a quest to raise the luxury steam yacht Gunilda. Run aground and sunk in 1911, with no loss of life and barely an afterthought by her wealthy American owners, Gunilda sat virtually intact in three hundred feet of water until one weekend in 1970, when Broennle and his diving instructor and partner Charles King Hague set out to find her. The fabulous wreck would soon cost Broennle a fortune, cause the death of King Hague, and change his own life forever. Torn between the duelling forces of greed and guilt over his partner's drowning, Broennle plunges into an hallucinatory lifetime project to raise Gunilda from the freezing waters. As his struggle becomes more and more desperate, we meet his son Tug, who, though deeply jealous of Fred's fixation on Gunilda, is himself drawn further and further into the web of his father's obsession.
  • Eye Witness No. 79
    Eye Witness No. 79
    Walter A. Sutton Grant Crabtree , … 1955 11 min
    Ferries, Tankers, Frigates - "Made in Canada": Craftsmen of Lauzon, Québec, carry on their forefathers' shipbuilding skills. Caviar Comes from Canada's Queerest Fish: Much in demand for export markets, sturgeon provide a profitable business for fishermen of the upper Ottawa River and for Mrs. Harry Donaldson of Temiscaming, who processes caviar. New Aircraft Joins Maritime Command: The Royal Canadian Air Force tests and approves the electronically equipped Neptune, the new medium-range aircraft of the Maritime Air Command.
  • Eye Witness No. 96
    Eye Witness No. 96
    Tim Wilson Hector Lemieux , … 1957 10 min
    School Timetable Suits Rural Students: The composite high school at Red Deer, Alberta, offers farm students a semester system that allows time both for farm chores and for education. Where Old Dolls Never Die: At Lew Chernick's doll hospital in Winnipeg broken dolls come by the thousands to be restored to their former charm. Nothing Stops the Scoot: A cross between launch, snow sled and airplane, the "Scoot" provides a versatile means of winter travel and recreation for residents of the Georgian Bay area.
  • Eye Witness No. 33
    Eye Witness No. 33
    1951 11 min
    These vignettes from 1951 covered various aspects of life in Canada and were shown in theatres across the country. Subjects included here are the S.S. Lurcher, an anchored boat that serves as both lighthouse and weather station; a 3-day celebration in Windsor, Ontario, to commemorate the freeing of American slaves; and British Columbia’s fabulous Sullivan Mine, where vast quantities of lead and zinc are being blasted from the belly of a mountain.
  • Eye Witness No. 54
    Eye Witness No. 54
    Daryl Duke Felix Lazarus , … 1953 11 min
    These vignettes from 1954 cover various aspects of life in Canada and were shown in theatres across the country. Subjects included here are: Ball Stars Start Young: In Vancouver's Little League, baseball players, diamond and equipment are junior size, but not the boys' coaches or the eagerness of teams and fans. An Auto a Minute: This is just about the rate of output seen in one of Ontario's automobile assembly plants. A Railroad Goes to Sea: Swapping steel rails for ocean waves is routine for British Columbia's Pacific Great Eastern Railway, travelling the forty-mile leg between Vancouver and Squamish by railway barge.
  • Eye Witness No. 63
    Eye Witness No. 63
    Jack Long  &  Walford Hewitson 1954 11 min
    These vignettes from 1954 cover various aspects of life in Canada and were shown in theatres across the country. Subjects included here are: Veteran Steamer Ends Record Service: On the mountain-circled Arrow Lakes of British Columbia, the Minto, an old stern-wheeler whose service dates back to the 1890's gold rush, makes her last round of calls. Inside Story of a Lady's Mink Coat: From raw pelts to fur auction, to dressing plant to fashion designer, we follow the several stages in the manufacture of a beautiful, luxurious mink coat.
  • Eye Witness No. 46
    Eye Witness No. 46
    1952 11 min
    These vignettes from 1952 covered various aspects of life in Canada and were shown in theatres across the country. Subjects included a floating laboratory ship from the National Research Council, a visit by a group of Canadian veterans revisiting Normandy plus events at Toronto's Maple Leaf Gardens.
  • Eye Witness No. 23
    Eye Witness No. 23
    1950 11 min
    The Magic Isle in Toronto Bay: A short ferryboat ride brings steaming Torontonians to Centre Island where sandy beaches and cool parks help them forget the heat as they swim and canoe. Nature Conscripted in War on Worms: The spruce budworm, which yearly destroys much valuable timber, is itself destroyed by the parasitic dipterous fly, bred for the purpose in a Belleville laboratory. Students Learn Lessons in the Sky: High school students at Buckingham, Québec, put their study of aerodynamics into practice as they pilot gliders at the local airfield.
  • The Flying Sailor
    The Flying Sailor
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    Amanda Forbis  &  Wendy Tilby 2022 7 min
    Two ships collide in a harbour, an explosion shatters a city, and a sailor is blasted skyward. With ears ringing, blood pulsing and guts heaving, he soars high above the mayhem and towards the great unknown. A bold blend of comedy, suspense and philosophy, The Flying Sailor is an exhilarating contemplation of the wonder and fragility of existence.
  • The Jean Richard
    The Jean Richard
    René Bonnière  &  Pierre Perrault 1963 29 min
    The building of a goélette, the wooden coastal freighter of the St. Lawrence River. Although ships of steel may replace these sturdy wooden vessels, the Jean Richard, shown in construction in this film, is still one ship built with all the old pride in craftsmanship.
  • The Land That Devours Ships
    The Land That Devours Ships
    Bill Mason 1984 58 min
    For almost a century and a half, Her Majesty's Ship Breadalbane lay wrecked and forgotten under the Arctic ice. In the spring of 1983, noted undersea explorer Dr. Joseph MacInnis led a team of twenty men on one of the most difficult, dangerous and unforgettable undersea adventures of the century--to put a diver on board the sunken vessel and recover some artifacts. This film, introduced by H.R.H. Prince Charles, provides a stunning visual account of this historic expedition.
  • The Last Mooseskin Boat
    The Last Mooseskin Boat
    Raymond Yakeleya 1982 28 min
    This short documentary follows Gabe Etchinelle as builds a mooseskin boat as a tribute to an earlier way of life, where the Shotah Dene people would use a mooseskin boats and transport their families and cargo down mountain rivers to trading settlements throughout the Northwest Territories.
  • On the Sea
    On the Sea
    René Bonnière  &  Pierre Perrault 1960 29 min
    Three communities at the foot of the Charlevoix cliffs, Petite-Rivière, île-aux-Coudres and Les Éboulements, practise the myriad trades of the sea. Its men are sailors, stevedores, longshoremen for the coasting trade. In winter, they becomes caulkers, carpenters and timer-cutters who will build a new vessel if required, or repair, caulk and paint the over 150 wooden schooners that ply the St. Lawrence River.
  • Shipbuilder
    Shipbuilder
    Stephen Surjik 1985 6 min
    This film recreates the true story of Tom Sukanen, an eccentric Finnish immigrant who homesteaded in Saskatchewan in the 1920s and 1930s. Sukanen spent ten years building and moving overland a huge iron ship that was to carry him back to his native Finland. The ship never reached water.
  • The Sea Got in Your Blood
    The Sea Got in Your Blood
    David Millar 1965 27 min
    A taste of the sea and people who sail it from the ports of the Atlantic Bluenose coast. Some of the sailors seen and heard in this black and white film are famous: Bill Roue who designed the first Bluenose schooner (still on the Canadian dime) and Captain Angus Walter who brought her to victory.
  • Safe Escort
    Safe Escort
    Don Virgo 1973 20 min
    Winter navigation through the ice-clogged Gulf of St. Lawrence is accomplished with comparative ease when an icebreaker of the Canadian Coast Guard Service leads the way. This is a film for ships' masters who must bring their vessels safely to port under all sailing conditions. It details the various ice conditions and the maneuvers to follow when a ship is under the escort of an icebreaker.
  • Winter Crossing at L'Isle-Aux-Coudres
    Winter Crossing at L'Isle-Aux-Coudres
    René Bonnière  &  Pierre Perrault 1960 29 min
    On an island the road ends where it begins, at the wharf. The wharf is the link to the rest of the world, until winter cuts it off. But the islanders know the winter sea and its movements. They judge the ice by its colours, avoiding the open channels, fighting through the slushy fragil ice, catching their footing on the chunk ice, and running all-out across the solid ice to the North Shore.
  • World of Passage
    World of Passage
    Nadine Beaudet 2015 7 min
    In this short documentary, massive ships harking from all four corners of the world majestically glide by on the St. Lawrence River as riverside residents watch. But they know nothing of the secrets hidden in these floating leviathans laden with colourful containers - except for a select few who get to briefly join their voyage when they guide the ocean-crossing ships safely into harbour.

    Nadine Beaudet's World of Passage captures poetic fragments of life on board as sailors perform their endless tasks.