Tag Archives: History

Featured, Vikings

Kevin Durand goes from Vikings fan to major player

It would seem like a no-brainer to have Kevin Durand join the cast of Vikings. The Thunder Bay, Ont., native is tall, muscular and has piercing eyes, three prerequisites needed to participate in the Canada/Irish co-production’s pillaging of early England.

And yet Durand—who is currently in production on Season 2 of The Strain in Toronto—was a little nervous about hopping on board the show’s longships as it launches into Season 3 on History on Thursday.

“It was scary to commit to a show that you’re a big fan of,” Durand says with a laugh. “Vikings is way up there for my wife and I, but when I read the words he had written, it just set me afire and I wanted to step up and live up to it.”

The “he” is Michael Hirst, Vikings‘ creator, showrunner and lone writer, the man who has crafted Ragnar Lothbrok’s (Travis Fimmel) journey from lowly farmer to King. Season 3 picks up soon after the events of the last adventures, with Ragnar, Rollo (Clive Standen), Floki (Gustaf SkarsgÃ¥rd), Lagertha (Katheryn Winnick), Athelstan (George Blagden) and Bjorn (Alexander Ludwig) once again venturing across the Atlantic to meet with King Ecbert (Linus Roache) and claim the farmland he’d promised them. Of course, things never go exactly as planned, and Ragnar finds himself caught up in a family feud between Princess Kwenthrith (Amy Bailey) and her uncle and brother, who have teamed to steal her kingdom of Mercia.

Durand plays Harbard, a mysterious figure who shows up in Kattegat while Ragnar and most of the men are in England, and he has a almost spiritual effect on Siggy (Jessalyn Gilsig), Helga (Maude Hirst) and Queen Auslaug (Alyssa Sutherland). Punching the name “Harbard” into Google brings up a couple of references, most notably the Norse gods of Odin and Loki.

“It’s so difficult to expand on what you’ve already found out,” Durand admits. “All I can really divulge is that he wanders into Kattegat and there is something influential and magical about him. Some are sucked in by him and others are skeptical. His actions will be felt for a time to come. Who he is will take some time to reveal.”

It didn’t take Durand long to fully immerse himself into the character of Harbard thanks to the show’s incredible sets, wardrobe and, especially, makeup. He recalls the beard created Harbard and thinking how weird it was as it was first being applied to his face. Two hours later and he didn’t recognize himself.

“I’m looking in the mirror at hair that goes down to my waist and a beard that just screams, ‘I am so virile! I will conquer!'”

Vikings airs Thursdays at 10 p.m. ET/PT on History.

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Featured, Vikings

Vikings Season 3 screening event ticket giveaway!

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Season 3 of Vikings returns to Canada on Thursday, Feb. 19, on History, but why wait? We’ve got four (4) tickets to give away to a special screening event in Toronto on Thursday, Feb. 12!

Taking place at the Cineplex Cinemas Yonge Dundas & VIP located at Yonge & Dundas Square, lucky winners not only get to witness Episode 1 of Season 3 on the big screen, but can participate in a Q&A session with two of the show’s producers as well as have the chance to show off their Vikings trivia to win prizes.

Want to attend this exclusive, private screening in Toronto? There are three ways to win one of four (4) tickets available:

We’ll announce the winners on Friday, Feb. 6, at 5 p.m. ET.

Here’s a glimpse into what’s in store in Season 3:

In the new 10-episode season, Ragnar (Travis Fimmel), the former farmer, is now King and has great responsibility resting on his shoulders. With the promise of new land from the English, Ragnar leads his people to an uncertain fate on the shores of Wessex. King Ecbert (Linus Roache) has made many promises and it remains to be seen if he will keep them. This season, the ever-ambitious Ragnar searches for something more – and he finds it in the mythical city of Paris. Rumoured to be impenetrable to outside forces, Ragnar and his band of Norsemen must come together to break down its walls and cement the Vikings legend in history.  The gripping family saga of Ragnar, Rollo (Clive Standen), Lagertha (Canadian Katheryn Winnick) and Bjorn (Canadian Alexander Ludwig) continues as alliances and loyal friendships are questioned, faith is catechized and relationships are strained. Vikings tells the extraordinary tales of the lives and epic adventures of these warriors and portrays life in the Dark Ages, a world ruled by raiders and explorers, through the eyes of Viking society.

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Featured, Reality, Lifestyle & Documentary

Dino Hunt Canada uncovers new species for TV

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Finding dinosaur bones while television cameras are rolling is difficult enough. But discovering a whole new species? Next to impossible. And yet that’s exactly what happened when it came to production of History’s latest homegrown project, Dino Hunt Canada.

“Production had started on the series and there was the possibility that they would find something new,” says Sarah Jane Flynn, senior director of original factual content at Shaw Media. “Then they came back to us and said, ‘You’re not going to believe this, but this really is a completely new species. We pretty much lost our minds.” The result is the star of Dino Hunt Canada and the newest showpiece in the Royal Ontario Museum’s dinosaur exhibit, a new species related to triceratops. (A video of Dr. David C. Evans unveiling the animal is below.)

The project, Flynn explains, was the result of former Cream Productions (Wild Things with Dominic Monaghan) co-founder Christopher Rowley asking ROM head palaeontologist Dr. David C. Evans what he was up to and being told his team was on the verge of discovering something big. Rowley and Evans told Shaw what they had planned and the network jumped on board.

Bowing Friday night, History’s four-parter not only tells the story of how Evans and his team discovered the as-yet-unnamed beast (an interactive website urges Canadians to come up with a name for it), but spotlights the palaeontologists who scour this country for bones. One of the biggest surprises—to me at least—was learning that dinosaur bones and other fossils aren’t just found in the badlands of Alberta. Digs in B.C. and the Bay of Fundy are documented in Dino Hunt Canada in what Evans calls a Golden Age for the industry.

Narrated by Dan Aykroyd, the first episode serves to introduce several of the key players in the show, including Evans and his team in Alberta as they began to unearth their unique beast. Palaeontology butted up against television production with Evans’ group faced with the daunting task of putting the skeleton together in months rather than years in order to meet Shaw’s broadcast deadline.

“We knew we had something special because the first thing we uncovered were the pieces of the neck shield, which is the most characteristic part of the horned dinosaur,” Evans explains. The biggest challenge for Evans’ squad was to uncover remainder of bones locked under a hillside; a summer of daily jackhammering and the animal was free of its earthly bonds.

“By then we were able to tell History, ‘We’ve found something new here,'” he says with a smile. “‘If you want to be here when we uncover this new dinosaur, come on out.'”

See what they uncovered starting tonight.

Dino Hunt Canada airs Fridays at 9 p.m. ET/PT on History.

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History goes for a ride with Gangland Undercover

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From a media release:

HISTORY is taking viewers inside a covert operation in the new, fact-based drama series, Gangland Undercover, which chronicles infiltrator Charles Falco’s (Canadian Damon Runyan) mission inside one of America’s most notoriously violent outlaw motorcycle gangs. Giving a rare look inside this historically infamous organized crime gang through the eyes of an undercover investigator, the six-episode series premieres on HISTORY Monday March 2nd at 10pm ET/PT and is based on Falco’s 2013 memoir, “Vagos, Mongols, and Outlaws: My Infiltration of America’s Deadliest Biker Gangs.”

Joining Damon Runyan in the cast are fellow Canadians Paulino Nunes (The Firm, Haven), James Cade (Copper, Rookie Blue), Don Francks (La Femme Nikita, Hemlock Grove), Melanie Scrofano (Warehouse 13, Edwin Boyd), Ari Cohen (Small Town Murder Songs, Maps to the Stars), Stephen McIntyre (Less Than Kind, Haven), Ian Matthews (Lost Girl, A History of Violence) and Patricia McKenzie (Cosmopolis, Mirador).

The series follows Falco’s three-year mission living a double-life as an ATF informant planted inside one of the most historically dangerous motorcycle gangs, the California-based Vagos – a criminal group involved in drug trafficking, arms smuggling, money laundering and murder. Falco initially took on the assignment out of self-preservation, to avoid 20 years in prison on drug charges, but his outlook soon shifted, becoming a quest to achieve justice. Operation 22 Green, as it was known, ended in March 2006 with the arrests of 25 gang members.

Drawing on the wealth of material from Falco’s book, along with broader documented historical research of inter-gang rivalries, the series captures the reality of outlaw biker counter-culture: a world in which freedom is equated with the right to carry guns and trade drugs with impunity, a world in which respect can be earned through fear.

Gangland Undercover is produced by Cineflix Productions in association with Shaw Media and Stephen Kemp. Noel Baker (Hard Core Logo) is the lead writer. Neil Rawles (Manson, 9/11 State of Emergency), Carl Hindmarch (The Somme, Holby City) and Stephen Kemp (Dangerous Persuasions, Locked Up Abroad) are the directors. Charles Tremayne and Kim Bondi are amongst Cineflix’s Executive Producers. A+E Networks will distribute Gangland Undercover outside of North America under the A+E Studios International banner.

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Featured

Preview: Ice Pilots flies into the sunset

For the last six seasons, viewers have been able to experience what it’s like–visually at least–to climb aboard a DC-3 and jet around Canada’s north. Now it all comes to an end as Ice Pilots NWT takes off for the final time.

Airing Wednesday night on History, the series-ender “D-Day” is unlike most episodes of Ice Pilots in that it was recorded in June–the polar opposite to the sub-zero filming in Yellowknife’s winter months–and the only cargo are human beings. But what a group of human beings. Mikey McBryan’s two-year dream of celebrating the 70th anniversary of D-Day in Europe has finally arrived. He’s got 12 Canadian troops and 12 American Green Berets flying up to Yellowknife to participate in the event, a commemorative jump into Alberta’s Abraham Lake from just 1,200 feet off the ground. Not only that, but Mikey and long-time Buffalo Airways employee Corey are jumping too, in a separate exit from the DC-3 at 12,000 feet.

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But, like the D-Day jump that was postponed due to weather, all of the planning and plotting Mikey had done seems for naught when Hurricane “Buffalo” Joe McBryan arrives on the scene and unhappy about the landing zone. Add to that a wall of bad weather and the entire project is set to be scrubbed.

I won’t ruin what happens next.

I was lucky enough to fly up to Yellowknife during a press junket for Ice Pilots NWT. The highlight, of course, was climbing into the back of the DC-3 and flying to and from Hay River with Joe in the cockpit. Bundled up in layers of clothing and packed into that fuselage, I realized I was one of a small group who’d had the opportunity to do it in real life. It was an experience I’ll never forget. Thanks, guys, for six great years on the air, and for welcoming a TV critic from the south into your lives for a day or two.

The Ice Pilots NWT series finale airs Wednesday at 10 p.m. ET on History.

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