About this season
Heritage Minutes, also known officially as Historica Minutes: History by the Minute, are a series of sixty-second short films, each illustrating an important moment in Canadian history. They appear frequently on Canadian television and in cinemas before movies and are now also sold on DVD. The Minutes were first introduced on March 31, 1991 as part of a one-off heavily-promoted history quiz show hosted by Rex Murphy. The thirteen original short films were broken up and run between shows on CBC Television and CTV Network. The continued broadcast of the Minutes and the production of new ones was pioneered by Charles Bronfman's CRB Foundation, Canada Post Power Broadcasting, and the National Film Board. They were devised, developed and largely narrated by noted Canadian broadcaster Patrick Watson, while the producer of the series was Robert Guy Scully. In 2009 Historica merged with The Dominion Institute to become The Historica-Dominion Institute. While the foundations have not paid networks to air Minutes, they have made them freely available, and in the early years paid to have them run in cinemas across the country. The Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission has ruled that Heritage Minutes are an "on-going dramatic series" thus each minute counts as ninety-seconds of a station's Canadian content requirements.
Episodes (14)
1. Governor Frontenac
Aired 28 June 1992 • 1 min
New France, under the leadership of French governor Louis de Buade de Frontenac, repels the British invasion at the Battle of Quebec (1690).
2. Midwife
Aired 28 June 1992 • 1 min
A look at the importance of midwives in early Canada.
3. Agnes Macphail
Aired 28 June 1992 • 1 min
The first woman to be elected to the Canadian House of Commons Agnes Macphail fights for penal reform.
4. Emily Carr
Aired 28 June 1992 • 1 min
The British Columbia painter discovers the artistic muse that will drive her life's work.
5. Joseph Tyrrell
Aired 28 June 1992 • 1 min
Geologist and cartographer Joseph Tyrrell discovers a plethora of dinosaur bones in Alberta.
6. Basketball
Aired 28 June 1992 • 1 min
Sports coach James Naismith's invention of Basketball is tested by a group of young students in Springfield Illinois.
7. Saguenay Fire
Aired 28 June 1992 • 1 min
One family's quick thinking helps them to survive the 1870 fire in the Saguenay, Quebec.
8. Joseph Casavant
Aired 28 June 1992 • 1 min
Joseph Casavant, world renowned organ maker, builds his first organ.
9. Jean Nicollet
Aired 28 June 1992 • 1 min
French coureur des bois and explorer Jean Nicolet becomes the first European to reach Lake Michigan, but thinks it's the Pacific.
10. Peacemaker
Aired 28 June 1992 • 1 min
The formation of the Iroquois Confederacy presented by a First Nations grandfather explaining the significance of the Great Peace to his granddaughter.
11. Rural Teacher
Aired 28 June 1992 • 1 min
Teacher Kate Henderson sways school trustees to embrace new methods, and the event is represented in the famous painting by Robert Harris: A Meeting of the School Trustees.
12. Emily Murphy
Aired 28 June 1992 • 1 min
Women's rights activist, jurist, and author Emily Murphy's quest for equal rights for women.
13. Vikings
Aired 28 June 1992 • 1 min
L'Anse aux Meadows in Newfoundland is settled by Norsemen (Vikings) around the year 1000 CE.
14. Baldwin & LaFontaine
Aired 28 June 1992 • 1 min
Lawyer and politician Robert Baldwin and Louis-Hippolyte Lafontaine build inter-lingual cooperation.