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Cottage Life dives into summer with sensational lineup of new programming

From a media release:

Cottage Life, a Blue Ant Media multi-platform brand that celebrates weekend living, is heading into summer with a lineup of new series that showcase fascinating animal stories and breathtaking retreats, as well as exclusive new online videos and its first-ever virtual reality shorts, featuring the Brojects.

Beginning Monday, July 4, the channel will premiere What on Earth? that gives viewers unique viewpoints of the natural world. Wednesday, July 6 will see the debut of the highly anticipated Season 7 of Hope For Wildlife, which follows the day-to-day operations of a non-profit wildlife refuge in Nova Scotia. Continuing the wildlife theme on Wednesdays, the series will be followed by Vet on the Hill and David Attenborough’s Natural Curiousities. Rounding out the schedule, viewers will get their weekend fix of stunning vacation homes beginning July 9, with new installments of series starring fan-favourite hosts like Charlie Luxton and George Clarke, as well as a new real estate series, Home of the Year. Additionally, audiences will be able to watch full episodes and webisodes of fan-favourite Cottage Life series, including Cabin Pressure and Brojects: In The House on CottageLife.com.

Hope For Wildlife (New Season, Canadian Premiere) begins its highly anticipated Season 7 on Wednesday, July 6 at 8 p.m. ET/PT. In this new season, the harshest Atlantic winter in a century challenges the staff at the Hope for Wildlife rehabilitation centre as they’ve never been tested. Construction on an expanded care facility for the centres resumes, but the melting snow reveals more orphaned and injured animals than the staff has ever encountered. Watch as Hope Swinimer, maintaining her signature optimism, inspires her crew to care for more than 3,000 animals — including more white-tailed deer than the sanctuary can hold — in a truly remarkable year of contrast and change.

New Online Videos
CottageLife.com is debuting its first-ever virtual reality videos, in which Brojects fans will be treated to new videos with 360-degree footage that complement the exclusive Brojects: In The House mini-build webisodes. Each video features a one- to three-minute scene related to key moments in the zany webisodes that gives viewers a 360-degree vantage point. The 360 videos can be found at CottageLife.com/video and can be viewed on desktop or smartphone. For a truly immersive virtual reality experience that puts viewers in the house with the brojects themselves, fans can visit brojects.tv for information on downloading the Brojects VR app and obtaining a Brojects Google cardboard viewer.

Over the summer, Cottagelife.com will also roll out five new short videos a week as part of its popular original web series that feature helpful bite-size tips, essential how-to tutorials, useful advice from Cottage Life Editor, Michelle Kelly and beautiful lakeside moments. Some of the videos set to debut this summer will include the basics for cooking a great steak, a DIY ice cream treat to impress guests and a look at unique locations in Canada. The site will also allow audiences to catch up on full episodes of new series such as Hope For Wildlife, which will join full episodes of fan favourites including Colin & Justin’s Cabin Pressure and Brojects: In The House. Audiences will find Cottage Life’s complete library of new and pre-existing online videos and webisodes at cottagelife.com/video.

Cottage Life is a Blue Ant Media multi-platform brand, celebrating the people, activities and places that make leisure time special. Exclusive content covers real estate, food, DIY projects and much more. Both informative and entertaining, no one captures the essence of weekend living like this. tv.cottagelife.com

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Featured, Reality, Lifestyle & Documentary

T+E’s Haunted Case Files scares up spooky tales

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Haunted Case Files is the supernatural investigation series I’ve been waiting for. Thankfully, T+E and Our House Media have brought it to the me. Listen, I like those other paranormal shows recounting the spooky experiences witnessed by everyday folks, but there’s always something missing because these people don’t deal with this stuff every day. The people starring in Haunted Case Files? Experts.

Debuting Saturday on the specialty channel—and a spinoff of Paranormal Survivor—Haunted Case Files tells the personal stories of real-life ghostbusters. Episode 1 begins in Lansing, Mich., in 2011, as homeowner Agnes and her family are terrorized by an unseen force that escalates from footsteps and phantom voices to eggs being thrown around. Enter paranormal expert Karlo Zuzic and his 300-plus investigations, whose research reveals Agnes’ son, Gary, took his own life years before. Was Gary the one responsible for the antics in his mother’s home on the anniversary of his death?

Thanks to excellent recreations and eyewitness testimony, Haunted Case Files has an air of authenticity missing from shows like Ghost Hunters and Ghost Adventures, two programs that use jerky camera work and post-production antics to ramp up the drama, resulting in frustratingly anemic evidence of the paranormal. That’s not the case with Haunted Case Files; a crystal-clear recording of a voice saying “Gary” can be heard on Karlo’s recording made during the house inspection.

The second story, involving the ghost of an axe murderer in Villisca, Iowa, is equally interesting. The murders of eight people are recalled over 100 years later when investigator Alan Tolf and his daughter, Anna, approach the home where six of deaths took place and capture compelling photographic evidence that they’re not alone. Then the Tolfs venture inside…

The result? A dramatic, sometimes downright scary series that goes a long way to convincing me spirits are around us.

Haunted Case Files airs Saturdays at 9 p.m. ET/PT on T+E.

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Reality, Lifestyle & Documentary

New original Canadian series Made by Destruction debuts Monday, July 4 on Discovery

From a media release:

As the saying goes: “one man’s trash is another man’s treasure.” This old adage rings true for Discovery’s newest original Canadian series MADE BY DESTRUCTION, airing back-to-back episodes on Mondays at 7 p.m. and 7:30 p.m. ET beginning July 4. Produced for Discovery Canada by yap films, and in association with Science U.S., the unique series gives viewers the inside scoop on how everyday objects are pulled from the trash, destroyed, transformed by technology, and reborn into new and useable items, exclusively on Discovery.

MADE BY DESTRCUTION reveals the step-by-step process of how commonplace and often dismissed objects are used to create new, useable products in factories all around the world by using innovative technology and inventive design. The series showcases how everyday objects are destroyed and re-manufactured, proving a product’s origin can be just as exciting and interesting as the item itself.

In the first episode, discarded photocopiers are shredded, their copper combined with a dash of zinc, before they are sent to a nearby foundry to be melted into brass. The brass is then heated, melted, and shaped into one of the most iconic musical instruments in the world: the trumpet.

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Reality, Lifestyle & Documentary

Bone-chilling new series Haunted Case Files to air on T+E this Saturday

From a media release:

Things are about to get even creepier on T+E. June 18 will mark the highly-anticipated premiere of Haunted Case Files at 9 p.m. ET/PT. T+E’s newest original production will chronicle the paranormal encounters of North America’s leading ghost hunters and mediums. Riding on the coattails of fan-favourite series Paranormal Survivor, this brand new spinoff, co-produced by Our House Media, will bring even more hair-raising, supernatural tales to resonate with fans this summer.

Haunted Case Files zeroes in on the personal stories of Paranormal Survivor stars and real-life ghostbusters, including Michelle Desrochers. In this series, the experts take a look back at their investigations over the years and recount their most terrifying encounters with spirits, demons and unexplained entities. Each episode features three different stories from different paranormal investigators and weaves gripping interviews, powerful recreations and, in many cases, actual recordings – both audio and visual – to create an edge-of-the-seat rollercoaster ride of thrills and chills.

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Featured, Reality, Lifestyle & Documentary

Recap: Working It Out Together- Stewards of the Land

This week’s powerful episode “Stewards of the Land” takes a hard look at the meaning of, and connection to, the land that Indigenous cultures innately have. It also examines the threats to traditional lands that exist in today’s society in the never ending quest for progress. Waneek Horn-Miller reminds viewers that this is not an Indigenous movement but a human movement, “that we do not drink separate water, or breath separate air, we have to live here together, and our children are going to inherit this.”

During  my interview with season three series director Michelle Smith,  she named this episode as one of her favourites. “This episode is such an empowering story of community coming together in order to block uranium mining on Cree territory.”

We visit Eastmain, James Bay, an area considered rich in uranium, and follow Jamie Moses as he takes his son Joshua out on the traditional lands in order to pass on his hunting and trapping skills. Jamie and his son provide the human context for this story. We also follow Jamie’s compelling testimony at Quebec’s Bureau d’audiences publiques sur l’environnement (BAPE) hearings, held in 2015, that explored the possible impact of uranium mining on Cree Territory.

Traditional Anishnaabe Story-Teller Isaac Murdoch discusses the balance that the Indigenous peoples had with the land.  They held a preservationist philosophy whilst the settlers considered the land as a commodity to exploit. This meant that the Indigenous beliefs so enmeshed with the land needed to be destroyed as they interfered with the harvesting of resources for the sake of progress.  “When you don’t believe that the water has a spirit or that a tree has a spirit you are able to cut it down,” and it becomes easier to rape the land of its riches. The process of colonization sought to destroy this connection but the need protect the land has acted as the impetus to reconnect with culture.

Shawn and Ashley Iserhoff,  leaders in the fight against uranium mining,  discuss the engagement of the Cree in their fight to deny uranium mining in Mistissini. They believe that the people today need to make responsible decisions  in order to  ensure future generations  will have the ability to enjoy the land as their ancestors once did. Ultimately it was the overwhelming involvement of the youth that voiced their concerns for their future that united the community in this latest battle. Because the Cree were so diligent in their fight to deny uranium exploration on their traditional lands, the BAPE Commission voted to deny future exploration not only on Cree territory, but within all of Quebec.

It was the following statement by Isaac Murdoch that truly resonated with me: “As characters in this sacred story, what is our next move? Do we do something? Do we sit back and watch? Or do we try to be heroes?” We have to unite, and we have to be strategic in our approach to government, and then we can make a difference. It is Jamie Moses’s belief, passed to him from his grandfather that the people keep the traditions alive but also adapt to the modern ways; use the best of both worlds as you move forward in a good way.

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