Canada Too Big to Film?

Dramatic Yukon gold rush tales of the Chilkoot Trail, Skookum Joe, Dawson City, and Mountie Sam Steele all make for good film and television.

Most recently, Charlotte Gray’s book about the Yukon gold rush, entitled Gold Diggers, was adapted for a made-for-television series called Klondike. That series is set to air on the Discovery Channel in early 2014.

Past movies about the Klondike have included Charlie Chaplin’s silent film The Gold Rush, Mae West’s Klondike Annie, and James Stewart’s The Far Country.

And, back in 1957, the National Film Board produced an award-winning documentary called City of Gold, narrated by Pierre Berton.
Watch the 22-minute documentary here:

City of Gold by Wolf Koenig & by Colin Low, National Film Board of Canada

Charlotte Gray’s article, “Too Big to Film,” about the challenges faced by filmmakers creating dramas about Canadian history, appears in the December 2013-January 2014 issue of Canada’s History magazine.

The magazine is available at newsstands. Or you can subscribe now online by going to the top of this page and clicking on Subscribe.

And, click here to read a story in a past issue of the Beaver magazine about travelling along the Klondike's Chilkoot Trail in 1964.