0:00:04 > 0:00:07A land of spectacular contrast.
0:00:08 > 0:00:11Vast prairies and dense forest
0:00:11 > 0:00:14bounded by three oceans.
0:00:14 > 0:00:17Canada is the second largest country in the world.
0:00:18 > 0:00:20You could fit the whole of Northern Ireland
0:00:20 > 0:00:22inside one of its national parks...
0:00:24 > 0:00:27..yet people from Ulster have had a remarkable influence
0:00:27 > 0:00:32on the history and geography of this vast nation,
0:00:32 > 0:00:36spanning two centuries and across 5,000 miles.
0:00:39 > 0:00:44Today, 4.5 million Canadians can trace their roots back to Ireland.
0:00:45 > 0:00:47But there was a time when the Irish made up
0:00:47 > 0:00:50a quarter of the population here.
0:00:51 > 0:00:55And the majority came from the nine counties of Ulster.
0:00:57 > 0:01:01English-speaking Canada had a noticeable Ulster accent.
0:01:04 > 0:01:07This is the story of people from Ulster
0:01:07 > 0:01:10who, from the 18th century to the present day,
0:01:10 > 0:01:12have made this country their home,
0:01:12 > 0:01:15of how they came here in such large numbers
0:01:15 > 0:01:18that they didn't merely adapt to the Canadian way of life,
0:01:18 > 0:01:22they helped to shape its culture, its society,
0:01:22 > 0:01:24its politics and its economy.
0:01:47 > 0:01:51Today, tourists come to the Ottawa Valley to explore
0:01:51 > 0:01:54its magnificent lakes, forests and rivers,
0:01:54 > 0:01:56but 150 years ago,
0:01:56 > 0:01:59people from Ireland were coming here to begin a new life.
0:02:04 > 0:02:0820 miles north of Ottawa City, on the banks of the Gatineau River,
0:02:08 > 0:02:12Wakefield was first settled by Joseph Irwin and his wife,
0:02:12 > 0:02:16who came here from the North of Ireland in 1829.
0:02:16 > 0:02:19Within a couple of years, ten more families joined them from home
0:02:19 > 0:02:23and soon, small settlements of people from Ulster
0:02:23 > 0:02:25sprang up all along the river valley.
0:02:32 > 0:02:36Often we look for the influence and impact of these Irish settlers
0:02:36 > 0:02:40in the fields of commerce, religion and politics,
0:02:40 > 0:02:43and you can certainly find that here in the Ottawa Valley,
0:02:43 > 0:02:47where the Irish once made up the majority of English-speaking immigrants,
0:02:47 > 0:02:50but it's the culture they brought with them from home,
0:02:50 > 0:02:54their tradition of music and dance, that is their enduring legacy
0:02:54 > 0:02:56in this region of Canada.
0:03:09 > 0:03:11FIDDLE PLAYS
0:03:11 > 0:03:13HANDCLAPS
0:03:17 > 0:03:19TAPPING OF DANCE STEPS
0:03:20 > 0:03:24How would you describe the kind of dance you've been teaching here, Pauline?
0:03:24 > 0:03:27Well, it's a mixture here in what we call the Ottawa Valley.
0:03:27 > 0:03:32It's a mixture of Irish, Scottish, French-Canadian.
0:03:32 > 0:03:37We've put it all together to what we call Ottawa Valley step dancing.
0:03:37 > 0:03:39TAPPING
0:03:42 > 0:03:44- And along with the dancing, the music.- The music.
0:03:46 > 0:03:50The fiddle seems to go hand in hand with the dancing.
0:03:50 > 0:03:53There's hundreds and hundreds of dancers and fiddlers in the Ottawa Valley.
0:03:53 > 0:03:55It's just spreading like wildfire.
0:03:55 > 0:03:58FIDDLE PLAYS
0:04:02 > 0:04:05And how rare is it to find this kind of dancing elsewhere?
0:04:05 > 0:04:08- You're not going to find it anywhere else.- Really?- It's...
0:04:08 > 0:04:09here in the Valley.
0:04:17 > 0:04:19CHEERING AND APPLAUSE
0:04:19 > 0:04:22So, there's a kind of history here to this in the Valley?
0:04:22 > 0:04:26It's been around for, you know, 100 or more years.
0:04:26 > 0:04:29It started back in the lumber camps
0:04:29 > 0:04:32when the men would go into the bush and all they had was
0:04:32 > 0:04:35their fiddle with them, so that's basically where it started.
0:04:46 > 0:04:50Ulstermen are not normally associated with Canadian lumberjacks,
0:04:50 > 0:04:53but it was work in the timber trade
0:04:53 > 0:04:58that attracted so many Ulster immigrants to the Ottawa Valley.
0:04:58 > 0:05:03In fact, many of them came here on ships carrying timber to Europe
0:05:03 > 0:05:05that returned with a cargo of immigrants.
0:05:11 > 0:05:15Even those who came here to farm often supplemented their income
0:05:15 > 0:05:18by working in the lumber camps during the winter months.
0:05:18 > 0:05:20The shanties, as they were known,
0:05:20 > 0:05:23were in isolated areas deep in the forest.
0:05:23 > 0:05:26It was difficult and dangerous work,
0:05:26 > 0:05:29and living conditions were extremely primitive.
0:05:35 > 0:05:38Work in the logging camps was not for the faint-hearted.
0:05:38 > 0:05:41You had to be tough and resilient.
0:05:41 > 0:05:45These men worked hard six days a week all through the winter.
0:05:54 > 0:05:58But when spring came, the loggers returned to their valley farms
0:05:58 > 0:06:01and the trees they'd cut were floated down river
0:06:01 > 0:06:05to the markets and ports of Montreal and Quebec City.
0:06:08 > 0:06:13The river is tranquil today, but at the height of the timber trade,
0:06:13 > 0:06:17in the mid-1800s, this river would have been quite literally a logjam.
0:06:22 > 0:06:25What began as a local industry
0:06:25 > 0:06:28rapidly expanded during the first half of the 19th century.
0:06:28 > 0:06:32Britain was cut off from its main supply of wood in the Baltic
0:06:32 > 0:06:34during the Napoleonic Wars
0:06:34 > 0:06:37and looked to its Canadian colonies to fill the gap.
0:06:41 > 0:06:44It was the beginning of a formidable timber trade
0:06:44 > 0:06:47that shaped not only this province but the entire country.
0:06:47 > 0:06:51Canada's forest drove its economic progress.
0:06:53 > 0:06:57This lucrative industry created timber barons. And one of the most
0:06:57 > 0:07:00successful of them, the biggest employer in Ottawa,
0:07:00 > 0:07:02was the son of Irish immigrants.
0:07:06 > 0:07:11John Rudolphus Booth was born in Ontario in 1827,
0:07:11 > 0:07:15the second of five children of a farmer and his wife from Ulster.
0:07:16 > 0:07:19His first job was as a carpenter
0:07:19 > 0:07:21but, by the age of just 30,
0:07:21 > 0:07:25he had saved enough money to lease a sawmill outside Ottawa.
0:07:30 > 0:07:33Booth's big break in business came in 1859.
0:07:33 > 0:07:37Ottawa had been chosen as the capital of Canada
0:07:37 > 0:07:41and Booth won the contract to supply the timber for this -
0:07:41 > 0:07:43the new parliament building.
0:07:47 > 0:07:49On the strength of that contract,
0:07:49 > 0:07:52he went on to buy valuable tracts of forest.
0:07:52 > 0:07:57His holdings eventually covered 640,000 acres.
0:07:58 > 0:08:03It was said of Booth that he knew the forest as a sailor knows the sea.
0:08:03 > 0:08:06He obviously knew how to make money out of it.
0:08:06 > 0:08:10By the 1890s, he had the largest timber operation in the world.
0:08:10 > 0:08:13But his business empire didn't end there.
0:08:15 > 0:08:19This is the Rideau Canal in Ottawa city -
0:08:19 > 0:08:21once the main commercial shipping route
0:08:21 > 0:08:25linking central Canada to the transatlantic ports.
0:08:25 > 0:08:28In its heyday, barges carrying timber would have been
0:08:28 > 0:08:31a very common sight on this canal.
0:08:31 > 0:08:34By John Booth's time, however,
0:08:34 > 0:08:36the railways had superseded the waterways
0:08:36 > 0:08:40as the fastest, most economic route to market.
0:08:40 > 0:08:44So, Booth put his money into the railway.
0:08:45 > 0:08:49He built a railroad linking Montreal to Chicago
0:08:49 > 0:08:51that made him proprietor
0:08:51 > 0:08:55of what was then the world's largest privately-owned railway.
0:08:56 > 0:09:01Booth continued to run his business empire well into his 90s.
0:09:01 > 0:09:05For most of his adult life, he had watched and, in many ways, directed
0:09:05 > 0:09:09the progress of his province and his country.
0:09:09 > 0:09:13And when he died, Prime Minister Mackenzie King described him as
0:09:13 > 0:09:15one of the fathers of Canada.
0:09:20 > 0:09:26I've come 360 miles west of Ottawa where, for seven months every year,
0:09:26 > 0:09:29the town of Stratford in Ontario bursts into life.
0:09:34 > 0:09:37Actors, directors and audiences come to participate
0:09:37 > 0:09:40in the Stratford Shakespeare Festival,
0:09:40 > 0:09:44the largest classical repertory theatre in North America.
0:09:53 > 0:09:56The festival was the brainchild of a local journalist
0:09:56 > 0:09:57called Tom Patterson.
0:09:57 > 0:10:01But the man who would turn his idea into world-class theatre
0:10:01 > 0:10:03was the British director, Tyrone Guthrie.
0:10:06 > 0:10:08Tyrone Guthrie was born in England
0:10:08 > 0:10:12but his father was Scottish and his mother was from Annaghmakerrig,
0:10:12 > 0:10:15County Monaghan, a place Guthrie would later make his home.
0:10:17 > 0:10:22He began his career in radio at the BBC in Belfast in 1924
0:10:22 > 0:10:27but made his name as a theatre director at the Old Vic in London
0:10:27 > 0:10:28where he recruited future stars
0:10:28 > 0:10:31such as Laurence Olivier and Alec Guinness.
0:10:34 > 0:10:37To find out how and why he came to Canada,
0:10:37 > 0:10:40I'm meeting the current artistic director of the Stratford Theatre,
0:10:40 > 0:10:42Antoni Cimolino.
0:10:43 > 0:10:47- Hello, William.- Good to see you. - Welcome to the Stratford Festival.
0:10:47 > 0:10:50So, what can you show me first of all? Backstage?
0:10:50 > 0:10:53Let's go back, let's go back. Have some fun.
0:10:56 > 0:11:00All right, so we're backstage on the famous Festival Theatre stage.
0:11:00 > 0:11:02The Stratford Festival is North America's largest
0:11:02 > 0:11:04not-for-profit theatre.
0:11:04 > 0:11:06It has about 1000 employees,
0:11:06 > 0:11:08attracts visitors from around the world.
0:11:08 > 0:11:10Half a million people come here per year.
0:11:10 > 0:11:13They come here from Thailand, Japan, every country in Europe,
0:11:13 > 0:11:15every state in the United States.
0:11:15 > 0:11:19And we run from about the end of April through to November.
0:11:19 > 0:11:22So, it was conceived as a short, summer season
0:11:22 > 0:11:28and it's expanded to being a powerhouse.
0:11:28 > 0:11:3112 to 14 productions in four different theatres
0:11:31 > 0:11:32and visitors from around the world.
0:11:32 > 0:11:36What would Stratford, as a town, be like, without this festival?
0:11:36 > 0:11:39It would be, you know, pretty, but quiet.
0:11:41 > 0:11:45Stratford was called Stratford by an engineer who was
0:11:45 > 0:11:48laying down the railroad here in the 1850s and was in love with
0:11:48 > 0:11:51Shakespeare, so there are surrounding towns called Shakespeare.
0:11:51 > 0:11:53There are sections of the city called Romeo.
0:11:53 > 0:11:57But not much was done about this until the 1950s.
0:11:57 > 0:11:59So it took 100 years
0:11:59 > 0:12:02before the town lived up to the promise of its name.
0:12:02 > 0:12:06And that all happened when one of our citizens,
0:12:06 > 0:12:10who was a great dreamer and a great salesman, Tom Patterson, had the
0:12:10 > 0:12:17idea of creating a festival based upon the Shakespeare connection.
0:12:17 > 0:12:21And somebody put him in touch with Tyrone Guthrie, and he called,
0:12:21 > 0:12:24and Tyrone Guthrie's maid wasn't sure who this was,
0:12:24 > 0:12:27could barely hear the connection across the Atlantic,
0:12:27 > 0:12:29was about to hang up,
0:12:29 > 0:12:32when she mentioned something in passing, to Guthrie who was
0:12:32 > 0:12:36in the other room, who had enough curiosity to come and take the call.
0:12:36 > 0:12:37And that's how history was made.
0:12:41 > 0:12:43Guthrie's curiosity brought him to Canada,
0:12:43 > 0:12:47but the reason he got involved in the Stratford Festival project
0:12:47 > 0:12:53was that it offered him an opportunity to build a new and revolutionary type of stage,
0:12:53 > 0:12:56unlike any in Europe at that time.
0:12:57 > 0:13:01Our repository of skills that range from wig-making
0:13:01 > 0:13:04to shoemaking - I mean it's very hard to find a shoemaker nowadays -
0:13:04 > 0:13:08but to one that can make shoes in all sorts of different periods
0:13:08 > 0:13:09are even harder to find.
0:13:09 > 0:13:12We have 150 people who make costumes.
0:13:12 > 0:13:15- We have... - Beard makers!
0:13:15 > 0:13:16Beard making, that's right!
0:13:23 > 0:13:26Why don't we have a look at some of our wardrobe shops here?
0:13:26 > 0:13:29We've got a series of rooms like this.
0:13:29 > 0:13:33And, right now, we've made eight productions.
0:13:33 > 0:13:36We only have five more to begin and, in the days ahead...
0:13:36 > 0:13:37So this is actually very quiet.
0:13:37 > 0:13:41In the spring, this room is just filled with people
0:13:41 > 0:13:42working on every style of costume.
0:13:42 > 0:13:45You go to one table and see something from, you know,
0:13:45 > 0:13:48Greek theatre, and another table it'll be Elizabethan
0:13:48 > 0:13:52and then something else will be modernistic.
0:13:52 > 0:13:55Back in 1953, Guthrie and the festival committee
0:13:55 > 0:13:58had to beg, borrow and barter
0:13:58 > 0:14:02to get the set, costume and craftspeople they needed
0:14:02 > 0:14:03to pull off a show.
0:14:03 > 0:14:07But when the curtain went up on Alec Guinness in Richard III,
0:14:07 > 0:14:09it was an immediate success.
0:14:11 > 0:14:13All right, so here we come.
0:14:13 > 0:14:16We're walking onto the festival stage.
0:14:16 > 0:14:18Here, we've laid out on top of this floor
0:14:18 > 0:14:25the cloak that was worn by Guinness as Richard III in 1953
0:14:25 > 0:14:28and you can see that it looks quite sumptuous.
0:14:28 > 0:14:31Like in all theatres, basically taking rags and junk
0:14:31 > 0:14:33and making it look like gold.
0:14:33 > 0:14:37Here, we have a model of the stage.
0:14:37 > 0:14:43And the miracle here is that nobody is further than 66 feet away.
0:14:43 > 0:14:45And the actor is right in the middle of the audience.
0:14:45 > 0:14:48So you don't have to do a lot of acting.
0:14:48 > 0:14:49You can just speak.
0:14:49 > 0:14:54And when people did this in 1953, the audience were shocked.
0:14:54 > 0:14:57It was no longer something from the 19th century.
0:14:57 > 0:14:59It was no longer big and large.
0:14:59 > 0:15:01It was intimate, it was truthful.
0:15:01 > 0:15:04Shakespeare, for the first time, became our contemporary.
0:15:04 > 0:15:06All because of this stage design?
0:15:06 > 0:15:08The architecture was everything, and he knew that.
0:15:08 > 0:15:13I think he made that discovery at Elsinore, actually, in Denmark,
0:15:13 > 0:15:18Where they were doing a performance outdoors of Hamlet
0:15:18 > 0:15:20and it started to rain on opening night.
0:15:20 > 0:15:24And they had the crown princes of Europe showing up for this
0:15:24 > 0:15:28performance, that included the Guinness, so what they did was,
0:15:28 > 0:15:31they went into a ballroom and they put chairs around the outside.
0:15:31 > 0:15:35This was 1937. And the great discovery Guthrie made was, wow,
0:15:35 > 0:15:37we just put the actors in the middle of this ballroom.
0:15:37 > 0:15:39It was riveting.
0:15:39 > 0:15:42He desperately wanted to create this stage
0:15:42 > 0:15:44and he couldn't get it done in Europe.
0:15:44 > 0:15:46He could not get it done in Britain.
0:15:46 > 0:15:49So, when he got the phone call from the New World,
0:15:49 > 0:15:53and this small town of, you know, extraordinary personalities
0:15:53 > 0:15:55really, when you think about it, now, he saw an opportunity.
0:15:55 > 0:15:57So he came here.
0:15:57 > 0:16:01He said to them, "Look, if you want to make money, just put on a bunch
0:16:01 > 0:16:06"of showgirls, do a show of that kind and you'll make money.
0:16:06 > 0:16:09"But, if you want to do something really extraordinary,
0:16:09 > 0:16:11"then I suggest to you that, together,
0:16:11 > 0:16:15"we can put on some of the best Shakespeare plays in the world."
0:16:15 > 0:16:19And, to their credit, that group of citizens in a small town said,
0:16:19 > 0:16:21"We want to do something extraordinary."
0:16:26 > 0:16:29How significant do you think Tyrone Guthrie was,
0:16:29 > 0:16:32as a director in the 20th century?
0:16:32 > 0:16:35He was huge. He was probably recognised
0:16:35 > 0:16:38at that time as THE greatest director of the 20th century.
0:16:38 > 0:16:39He worked all over the world.
0:16:39 > 0:16:47He had an ability to inspire, to debunk, to excite, to teach,
0:16:47 > 0:16:51which made him a great source of creation.
0:16:55 > 0:16:58Is he still known about here in Stratford?
0:16:58 > 0:16:59There are streets named after him.
0:16:59 > 0:17:01There are still people that remember him.
0:17:01 > 0:17:04The men who built all this, Oliver Gaffney,
0:17:04 > 0:17:09he went for weeks paying his workers when no money was coming forward.
0:17:09 > 0:17:12And they said to him years later, "Oliver,
0:17:12 > 0:17:14"why did you continue to build when there was no money?
0:17:14 > 0:17:18"You might have lost hundreds of thousands of dollars."
0:17:18 > 0:17:20And he said, "Well, there were two reasons.
0:17:20 > 0:17:23"One, I didn't want this enterprise to fail
0:17:23 > 0:17:26"and have someone blame it on somebody in this community not coming through.
0:17:26 > 0:17:30"And the second is, you know, that Tyrone Guthrie, he's a really nice guy."
0:17:39 > 0:17:42Canada offered Tyrone Guthrie a unique opportunity
0:17:42 > 0:17:46to make his mark, just as it did the many thousands of
0:17:46 > 0:17:50Ulster immigrants who came here and made this place their home.
0:17:54 > 0:17:59From Ontario, I've come 1,000 miles west to the province of Manitoba.
0:17:59 > 0:18:02When immigrants from Ulster first started coming to Canada,
0:18:02 > 0:18:06vast tracts of this country were unknown and uncharted,
0:18:06 > 0:18:10but, as the nation grew, so the need to open up the last great
0:18:10 > 0:18:15wildernesses to agriculture and settlement became more pressing.
0:18:18 > 0:18:22The land west of Ontario was generally considered
0:18:22 > 0:18:28unsuitable for agriculture. It was little more than one vast desert.
0:18:28 > 0:18:29Or so they believed.
0:18:29 > 0:18:35So, in 1872, the Canadian government commissioned the first of five
0:18:35 > 0:18:37surveys of Western Canada.
0:18:37 > 0:18:41And one of those tasked with finding out if the land could be put
0:18:41 > 0:18:45to use was a botanist called John Macoun from County Down.
0:18:49 > 0:18:54Born in Magheralin in 1831, Macoun emigrated to Belleville, Ontario,
0:18:54 > 0:18:57with his mother and brothers in 1850.
0:18:57 > 0:19:01But what they found when they got there was a disappointment.
0:19:01 > 0:19:04Most of the good land had already been taken
0:19:04 > 0:19:07and what was left was covered in forest.
0:19:10 > 0:19:13While his eldest brother, Frederick, cleared the land,
0:19:13 > 0:19:18John and his brother James worked as labourers on neighbouring farms.
0:19:21 > 0:19:25In his autobiography, John described just how tough life was
0:19:25 > 0:19:28for the pioneer settlers, and how his brother Frederick
0:19:28 > 0:19:31almost gave up and returned to Ireland.
0:19:31 > 0:19:35But he also writes about how the neighbours supported them,
0:19:35 > 0:19:39and each other, helping to build homes and barns,
0:19:39 > 0:19:41to plough the land and bring in the harvest.
0:19:45 > 0:19:48With what little free time he had,
0:19:48 > 0:19:51John began to study the plants and flowers of his new home
0:19:51 > 0:19:56and within a few years, his hobby had become a full-time occupation,
0:19:56 > 0:19:59one that would bring him to the attention of universities
0:19:59 > 0:20:04and botanists across North America and the British Isles.
0:20:09 > 0:20:14At the Manitoba Museum in Winnipeg, botanist Dr Diana Bizecki Robson
0:20:14 > 0:20:17has been following in the footsteps of Macoun,
0:20:17 > 0:20:21studying the flora and fauna of Western Canada.
0:20:21 > 0:20:22What kind of person was John Macoun?
0:20:22 > 0:20:26He was one of those people like many other botanists in the past
0:20:26 > 0:20:30that seemingly got obsessed with the pursuit of plants.
0:20:30 > 0:20:33He was virtually a self-taught botanist
0:20:33 > 0:20:36so, most of what he learned, he learned in books
0:20:36 > 0:20:38and he learned from studying the plants themselves.
0:20:38 > 0:20:40It was just something he really enjoyed.
0:20:40 > 0:20:43It was a passion. He loved going out and collecting plants.
0:20:43 > 0:20:45He started off when he was quite young.
0:20:45 > 0:20:48Why did people back then think Saskatchewan and Manitoba
0:20:48 > 0:20:51were simply unsuitable for agriculture?
0:20:51 > 0:20:53A lot of people's impressions of Canada
0:20:53 > 0:20:56came from a report that Captain John Palliser wrote.
0:20:56 > 0:21:01He came through those areas from 1857-1860.
0:21:01 > 0:21:05And there were a lot of negative things going on, climatically.
0:21:05 > 0:21:08There was a severe drought happening at the time.
0:21:08 > 0:21:10There were some pretty big grass fires in the areas
0:21:10 > 0:21:12that Palliser travelled through
0:21:12 > 0:21:14so the vegetation did not look lush at all.
0:21:14 > 0:21:16In fact, in places, it would have looked like a desert,
0:21:16 > 0:21:18with blowing sand and everything
0:21:18 > 0:21:22so when people read that report, they just thought, "Oh, dear.
0:21:22 > 0:21:24"There's not going to be anything."
0:21:24 > 0:21:26Any kind of possible settlement in this area.
0:21:26 > 0:21:28And they sort of wrote it off.
0:21:29 > 0:21:34But, by the 1870s, pressure on land resources in the East
0:21:34 > 0:21:37and the need to build a railroad to the West Coast
0:21:37 > 0:21:39convinced the government to send Macoun
0:21:39 > 0:21:44and a group of railway engineers to survey the prairies once again.
0:21:47 > 0:21:51When he came out here during what was quite a wet period
0:21:51 > 0:21:52and saw all these lush grasses,
0:21:52 > 0:21:56he was actually a little bit surprised
0:21:56 > 0:21:58at how beautiful and wonderful it looked.
0:21:58 > 0:22:00And he thought, hey, there's no trees here,
0:22:00 > 0:22:02it will be easy to cultivate.
0:22:04 > 0:22:07And he figured that the weather, you know, there was rain in the spring
0:22:07 > 0:22:09which is usually when wheat needs the rain, not so much in August,
0:22:09 > 0:22:12which is fine, because wheat's not a rain plant,
0:22:12 > 0:22:15so he thought that the land was going to be just fine for agriculture,
0:22:15 > 0:22:19perfect for agriculture. In fact, he was really enthusiastic
0:22:19 > 0:22:23and didn't really pay attention to the fact that maybe
0:22:23 > 0:22:25droughts were periodically going to be a problem.
0:22:28 > 0:22:30When he did complete his report and said
0:22:30 > 0:22:32this place was suitable for agriculture,
0:22:32 > 0:22:35was that idea immediately accepted by everybody?
0:22:35 > 0:22:37Well, the government was really, really happy
0:22:37 > 0:22:39because they desperately wanted to settle that area.
0:22:39 > 0:22:43They were worried that Americans were going to expand into Canada
0:22:43 > 0:22:45so they wanted Canadian people living in the West
0:22:45 > 0:22:48and they also really wanted the money.
0:22:49 > 0:22:55The railway was there to ship wheat from the prairies out East
0:22:55 > 0:22:58to sell for export and to get money from taxes
0:22:58 > 0:23:00but they also saw it as an opportunity
0:23:00 > 0:23:03to manufacture things in eastern Canada
0:23:03 > 0:23:05that they would ship out to the settlers.
0:23:05 > 0:23:09So, they saw the prairies as a potential cash cow
0:23:09 > 0:23:12and John was the one who gave them the data that they needed
0:23:12 > 0:23:14to go ahead with a southern railway route.
0:23:16 > 0:23:18So, he opened the gateway to the West, really?
0:23:18 > 0:23:21He did. In fact, people like to say that Macoun changed the map.
0:23:21 > 0:23:23Before John came out, they were actually planning on
0:23:23 > 0:23:27routing the Canadian Pacific Railway further to the north
0:23:27 > 0:23:31through what was basically along the historic Carlton Trail.
0:23:31 > 0:23:34They decided afterwards to send it through the South.
0:23:34 > 0:23:38So now it goes through Brandon, it goes through Regina and Calgary.
0:23:38 > 0:23:41Those cities might not have existed, actually,
0:23:41 > 0:23:43if the route had gone to the North.
0:23:52 > 0:23:56If it wasn't for John Macoun, Robert Stoop might not be
0:23:56 > 0:23:58farming in Manitoba today.
0:23:58 > 0:24:02He and his family moved here from Warrenpoint in 1998
0:24:02 > 0:24:05and have a mixed farm of 200 acres,
0:24:05 > 0:24:09200 miles west of Brandon, Manitoba's second city.
0:24:14 > 0:24:17What brought you to Canada from Warrenpoint?
0:24:17 > 0:24:21We were landlocked, where we farmed back in Ireland,
0:24:21 > 0:24:23simply because you couldn't afford
0:24:23 > 0:24:26to buy land and pay for it through farming.
0:24:28 > 0:24:30I saw an opportunity here to come and...
0:24:30 > 0:24:34Even a different enterprise which I think probably pays a bit better.
0:24:34 > 0:24:37At least it's a bit more steady income.
0:24:37 > 0:24:40Ann, what were your first impressions when you arrived in Canada?
0:24:40 > 0:24:42What was it, 17 years ago?
0:24:42 > 0:24:45Yes. The first impression was the heat
0:24:45 > 0:24:47when we first came out of the airport
0:24:47 > 0:24:52and once we started travelling west, just wide-open spaces
0:24:52 > 0:24:58not like our nice, little neat fields back home, you know?
0:24:58 > 0:25:03The tractors were big out here, and we often say, goodness,
0:25:03 > 0:25:07they would never fit down the roads where we came from, you know?
0:25:07 > 0:25:12So, and just, at that time, you know, fell in love with Canada.
0:25:16 > 0:25:20How did you find out about this part of Canada?
0:25:20 > 0:25:23Oh, I think I'd known about it all my life.
0:25:23 > 0:25:25Prairies, to me,
0:25:25 > 0:25:28was the only part of Canada that I knew anything about.
0:25:30 > 0:25:341897 was when the first of mum's uncles, my great uncles,
0:25:34 > 0:25:39emigrated to Canada. And between then and 1903,
0:25:39 > 0:25:41there was five of them here.
0:25:41 > 0:25:44My grandfather, who was the youngest of the family,
0:25:44 > 0:25:47he didn't come to Canada.
0:25:49 > 0:25:52He told stories about William leaving home
0:25:52 > 0:25:56and about how their mother walked him down the lane.
0:25:56 > 0:25:57And by intuition,
0:25:57 > 0:26:00she probably knew that day she would never see him again.
0:26:03 > 0:26:04And neither she did.
0:26:11 > 0:26:14It was a three day round-trip from where they homesteaded
0:26:14 > 0:26:16to the nearest town.
0:26:16 > 0:26:19They went to the town, I think, about once every six months
0:26:19 > 0:26:21and brought enough provisions home.
0:26:25 > 0:26:27It would not have been an easy job.
0:26:27 > 0:26:31They were young. I guess they were pretty eager.
0:26:31 > 0:26:33They were getting 160 acres,
0:26:33 > 0:26:37something they would never have a hope in high heaven of owning
0:26:37 > 0:26:40back in Ireland, and they sure did a good job on it.
0:26:45 > 0:26:49You feel part of a long story of Irish people who have come here.
0:26:49 > 0:26:52You know about it in terms of your family's background, but it goes back
0:26:52 > 0:26:54even further than that.
0:26:54 > 0:26:57I think so. Once you mention that you're Irish or whatever,
0:26:57 > 0:27:02"Oh, my great-grandmother or someone was from somewhere else."
0:27:02 > 0:27:06And a lot of them came from the UK and Ireland
0:27:06 > 0:27:10and that, yeah, you almost feel related to everybody,
0:27:10 > 0:27:13in the sense that they want to identify with you,
0:27:13 > 0:27:18and none of them have one clue where their ancestors came from.
0:27:18 > 0:27:20It was Ireland, but that as much as they know.
0:27:20 > 0:27:24And you feel full Canadian identity, or are you a bit mixed?
0:27:24 > 0:27:29Well, I still tell people I'm British-Irish, you know?
0:27:29 > 0:27:33I don't like to admit that I'm Canadian, but I am!
0:27:33 > 0:27:34ANN LAUGHS
0:27:34 > 0:27:37But no, yeah, this is home now
0:27:37 > 0:27:40and this is the place I'll live for the rest of my life.
0:27:45 > 0:27:49Canada is a vast country with a rich and complex history.
0:27:49 > 0:27:54And you can't fully understand the story of this great nation
0:27:54 > 0:27:58without appreciating the contribution of those pioneering settlers
0:27:58 > 0:28:02from Ulster, who crossed an ocean and brought with them
0:28:02 > 0:28:04the values that would help shape this place.
0:28:04 > 0:28:09An adventurous spirit, a willingness to take risks,
0:28:09 > 0:28:10a passion for justice,
0:28:10 > 0:28:15and an ambition to make a better life for themselves
0:28:15 > 0:28:17and for their fellow countrymen
0:28:17 > 0:28:20they would meet here in this brave new world.