BFI

This is a classic industrial 'interest' film of its period, showing the processes involved in producing grain for bread in Canada. It shows types of ploughing, reaping and threshing using both animals and steam powered machines. Grain is transported to the city for processing and storage. We travel with the train in a 'phantom ride' and, on arrival, view the city in a panorama taken from a high vantage point. Another travelling shot shows us the dockside from the river, and we see the great warehouses where the grain is stored. Finally we see children back on the farm eating the resulting product, a loaf of fresh bread.

The film is very much in line with the image of western Canada presented by its government. The Canadian Emigration offices in London at the time held posters that might have been taken as stills from this film. Fit young farmers plough vast flat fields with golden wheat sheaves in profusion to suggest the wealth that could be earned from cultivating this virgin land. As long as you were healthy and white, that is: a very harsh Immigration act was brought in this year that excluded all non-white races and the poor or infirm, and even Americans from south of the border.

Bryony Dixon

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