This week on Wild Archaeology, we return to Richards Island, located in the Beaufort Sea.
If you recall, Dr. Max Friesen of the University of Toronto and his team are in a race against weather and climate change to gather information and artifacts from a traditional cruciform home, in their quest to gain greater understanding of the ancient Inuvialuit people.
We visit with Rosalie Scott, conservator of Prince of Wales Northern Heritage Centre, who explains how the found artifacts are to be stored, stabilized and the proper way to pack these items for shipment back to the lab.
Then it’s off to Tuktoyaktuk—where the descendants of Richards Island now live—to meet Boogie Pokiak, a traditional Inuvialuit hunter who explains some of the history of the land and gives Jacob and Jenifer an opportunity to taste local foods, including muktuk.
Finally, we go to Dr. Friesen’s lab at the University of Toronto to look at some of the better finds from this excavation.
This episode was a bit of a departure from the previous few. Very little excavation was to be had; instead, we focused on some of the cultural aspects that are so important for understanding the context of the finds on these digs.
This week’s tally? Jacob: closed end harpoon head. Jenifer: no finds. Jacob is still in the lead!
Wild Archaeology airs Tuesdays at 7:30 p.m. ET on APTN.
I am just going to get this out of the way: I am terrified of falling.
I am not afraid of heights so long as there is some logical way that I cannot fall—safety harness, railing, plexiglass—I am completely at ease. Amusement park rides? The higher the better.
If, however, it is just me up high and nothing but my own skill keeping me from falling, I am terrified!*
So to watch any of these episodes of Mohawk Ironworkers sets my nerves just a little on edge. However, this episode was stressful for me to watch. My anxiety level was through the roof and I found myself wincing at the death-defying feats Albert Stalk, Jr. performed. I closed my eyes during his commercial. He is brilliant, and the footage is amazing. To be honest, I had never heard of “Eiffel Al” before this but WOW, what a life! I am left amazed, and he is IMHO barking mad to have done this. Brilliant, but barking mad!
We trace the life of Stalk, Jr., an ironworker from Kahnawa:ke who was the first to scale the Eiffel Tower without any safety equipment. From this fame, Albert earned a living as a model before eventually settling down to home building. If you didn’t catch the episode, I highly recommend you stream it online at APTN. This one will have you on the edge of your seat!
*(Usually, I watch a show twice before I review it; once to get the gist and a second time to grab specific details. This time, I just couldn’t. It has nothing to do with the quality of the content. Just call me a wuss!)
Mohawk Ironworkers airs Tuesdays at 7 p.m. ET on APTN.
Grab your allen keys, Canada! Gusto debuts its first original design program with the premiere of THE SEARCH FOR CANADA’S NEXT DESIGNER. From Bell Media In-House Productions, the six-episode, 30-minute series airs Sundays at 9 p.m. ET, beginning October 16 on Gusto.
Hosted by THE MARILYN DENIS SHOW’s design expert Tommy Smythe, the series sees six competitors vie for a coveted design contract with IKEA Canada as they face weekly challenges and eliminations. THE SEARCH FOR CANADA’S NEXT DESIGNER encores on CTV Two, Thursdays at 10 p.m. ET, beginning Oct. 20.
In addition to Smythe, THE SEARCH FOR CANADA’S NEXT DESIGNER features IKEA Canada judge Alicia Caroll and a cast of top-tier guest judges, including celebrity chef Roger Mooking, THE SOCIAL co-host Lainey Lui, Canadian home renovation guru Sebastian Clovis, winner of THE MARILYN DENIS SHOW’s search for their next designer expert, Andrew Pike, and more.
The six competitors competing in THE SEARCH FOR CANADA’S NEXT DESIGNER are:
Christopher, Interior Designer
Joey, Owner of Joey Vogel Interior Design
Marcy, Entrepreneur and YouTube personality
Martha, Engineer and Lead Designer at Hedgeford & Berkley
Natalie, Owner of Nest Design Studios
Victoria, Television Art Director
In the premiere episode of THE SEARCH FOR CANADA’S NEXT DESIGNER (Sunday, October 16 at 9 p.m. ET on Gusto) the competition is on! Host Tommy Smythe dishes out the first-ever challenge for six up-and-coming design experts: a dining space transformation. Working with a limited budget and tight deadline, the designers soon find out that every little detail matters – and for one of them, the journey is about to come to an end. The episode features special guest judge, Roger Mooking.
THE SEARCH FOR CANADA’S NEXT DESIGNER is executive produced by Michelle Crespi. John Simpson is co-executive producer.
How many parents would love to be a fly on the wall of their child’s high school? CBC’s This is High School, premiering tonight, puts 48 flies on that wall. Cameras, that is, on the walls of British Columbia’s South Kamloops Secondary School, and they offer a compelling and compassionate peek at the lives of the students.
The six-part documentary series intersperses footage from these cameras with interviews with the subjects, including students, teachers, guidance councillors, the vice-principal  and principal.
“We scoured the country for the right high school that would not just let us in—after a long conversation with administration, teachers, students, parents, and the government—but the school had to have inspiring teachers and an open administration,” said David Paperny.
Luckily, Paperny has an Academy Award nomination for the documentary The Broadcast Tapes of Dr. Peter and success with series such as Yukon Gold and Chopped Canada as his calling card.
“We had to prove to them that we had no hidden agenda, that we really did want to present life as it was, and to use our tradition as reputable producers of factual programming for the last 20 years.”
They selected certain children to follow who were on an interesting journey. About a dozen are highlighted, two per episode, and they offer some naked vulnerability on screen. Sometimes the students are obviously mugging for the cameras, sometimes they have obviously forgotten the cameras are there, and sometimes they are speaking directly to the interviewer about their experiences and feelings.
For someone whose high school days are a far-off but not unpleasant memory, I was reminded of three things: children can be casually cruel to each other, I’m incredibly thankful I didn’t grow up in the social media age, and the adults who tried to tell us back then that those were the best years of our lives were out of their minds.
In the first episode we follow Maddie, who is adjusting to changing friendships and cyberbullying, and Dusan, a good-hearted boy who’s causing chaos with his antics. The children and their parents put an enormous amount of trust in Paperny and CBC’s hands, and it’s not misplaced. Their stories are told with respect and compassion.
“They’re volatile, they’re poignant, they’re at a stage where their lives are being shaped and they’re making big decisions. For us to be there was such an honour and a privilege.”
Producer David Paperny
“Once we started following kids they knew we were following them, and we’d be pulling them aside for short interviews at the end of a school day,” said Paperny. “Yes, they left themselves vulnerable, but I think they were proud that their lives were important enough to be followed for a few weeks by a television production company,  and that their seemingly small struggles are actually—for all of us, but especially for high school students—big challenges, big issues.”
The tone of the show is more poignant and inspirational than expose. “It’s not an inside report on bullying or drug abuse or teen sex,” said Paperny. “Some of that comes up, but the point is kids have goals, they have challenges. And teachers, even more than when I was a high school student, are taking on a bigger role to help individual students overcome those challenges. That’s what our show’s about.”
Paperny cites the Oscar nomination 22 years ago as the touchstone for the rest of his career when he realized “great television, entertaining television, newsy television could have a positive and inspirational impact on the world.” He sees that same force at work in his current CBC series.
“In England where they’ve had this format for a few years, it’s run for four seasons already. It’s reopened a dialogue across Britain about the role of teachers—a national conversation about education because of its insights. This is High School is exactly the kind of program we love doing.”
This is High School airs Sundays at 8 p.m. on CBC.
Emily Osmond retired to her home community near Kawacatoose First Nation, Saskatchewan, after living a full life having run three different businesses and raising several children as her own.
Emily lived alone with her dogs, not wanting to be in a retirement home waiting to die. She kept track of her medication on a calendar; on September 13, 2007, Emily made her last entry on that calendar and vanished without a trace. Her family believes Emily was taken—her dogs were abandoned—she had told no one she was leaving and her purse was still in her home when the police investigated.
The family suspects there was foul play. It appeared to family members her things had been disturbed and unfamiliar tire tracks riddled her property. It was unlikely she could travel far from her home as she used a cane. To further create heartache for the family, Emily’s grand nephew, Cody Wolf, disappeared a few years later. As a result, the community and law enforcement agencies have come together.
Lloyd Goodwill, RCMP-retired, has a hard time understanding how one missing person case is somehow more important than another, as is the case with so many of the murdered and missing Indigenous women and girls. The lack of that equity in the past is why we are now seeing an inquiry by the Canadian federal government. This case also raises awareness that Indigenous women and girls live with a higher risk of violence in their lives simply due to their Indigenity.
Taken is currently running a contest via Facebook. You could win a visit to the set in 2017 and be a part of the shoot. Interested participants can find details here. The name of the winner will be announced on Facebook following the airing of next week’s episode on October 14.
Taken airs a new episode Fridays at 7:30 p.m. ET on APTN.
