CBC tells Canada's story

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Canada: A People's History launches season two Sept. 30 at 7 p.m. with episode 10, Taking the West.

Claiming the vast prairies is key to completing a country that will stretch from the Atlantic to the Pacific, but severe economic depression in the east and disillusionment in the west leads to a resistance led by Louis Riel.

People pour into the cities and competition for jobs is fierce. Workers, particularly children, are exploited, the depression deepens, crime escalates. Many responded to the call of the west, despite plagues of grasshoppers, prairie fires, early frosts and intense loneliness. The Europeans push into prairie lands and threaten the existence of the Metis and the Indian nations.

Episode 11 on Oct. 7 concerns the Klondike Gold Rush, with thousand of fortune hunters making the trek to Dawson Creek, their dream of wealth quickly shattered. Other topics in this episode recount ethnic intolerance, the Boer War and Canada's involvement in the First World War.

The series finale is scheduled for Nov. 18.

Executive producer Mark Starowicz said the reaction to Canada: A People's History has been great.

"We knew there was a desire to see our story on the air; we drilled for oil and hit a geyser that was more powerful than we had ever anticipated."

Each episode has drawn more than two million viewers. Home videos and a companion book are also best sellers. By late fall about 80 per cent of Canadian schools will have access to the series' educational materials.