Buffalo Bill in Canada
Mysteries in the Archives: 1910 Buffalo Bill (English Canada)
Mystères d'archives:
1910 – Buffalo Bill (Quebec, France and French Switzerland)
Arkistojen salat:
1910 - Buffalo Bill (Finland)
Verschollene Filmschätze:
1910 – Buffalo Bill / Lost Film Treasures: 1910 – Buffalo Bill (Germany
and German Switzerland)
Ur arkiven: 1910 –
Buffalo Bill (Sweden and Swedish Finland)
Mystères d'archives:
1910 – Buffalo Bill (Mexico)
Canada-France-Finland-Switzerland
Production companies: NFB-National Film Board of Canada /
ONF-Office National du Film du Canada (Ottawa), ARTE France & Centre
National de la Cinématographie (both Paris, France), Institut national de
l'Audiovisuel (Bry-sur-Marne, France), YLE Teema and Ritva Leino (both
Helsinki, Finland) and RTSI-Televisione Svizzera (Bern, Switzerland)
Distrutors:
NFB-National Film Board of Canada / ONF-Office National du Film du
Canada (Ottawa) and INA-Institut National de l'Audiovisuel (France)
Producer: Florence
Fanelli
Head of Production:
Xavier Marliangeas
Director:
Alexandre Auque
Idea: Serge
Viallet & Cédric Lépée
Editor: Vanessa
Bozza
Historical research:
Cedric Gruat
Music: Niels Poux
Narrator & translator: Dana Burns Westberg
Cast: William Frederick Cody (as Himself),
Gordon William Lillie (as Pawnee Bill),
and the Rough Riders of the World
Available in both English and French; running time: 25 minutes, 56 seconds
In 2008, the
documentary called "Mysteries in the Archives: 1910 Buffalo Bill", produced for the
NFB-National Film Board of Canada, made its debut as episode 5 (from season
one) of the TV program "Mysteries in the Archives" (which first aired
on July 31, 2009). French filmmakers
Alexandre Auque and Florence Fanelli took a forgotten Canadian
"newsreel" spool and fashioned their short film around it. Who shot the original footage, and where it
was filmed is unknown – just that it was filmed in Canada. Buffalo Bill Cody knew Canada well. He had lived there and brought his travelling
show through the Dominion a number of times.
On September 12
and 13 (a Monday and a Tuesday in the late summer of 1910), Buffalo Bill Cody
brought his world-famous "Buffalo Bill's Wild West Show" to
Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada. He
had founded the show in 1883 and spent the next thirty years touring across
both America and Canada. He even
travelled to Europe, starting in 1887, and had delighted audiences in England,
France, Germany, Italy, and Spain. Cody
had previously been in Canada in 1885.
Reports have him standing on the banks of the St. Lawrence River (in
Montreal, Quebec), in August of that year.
Presumably crude photographs were taken, but none have survived. This would have predated the birth of the motion
picture and took place before the advent of wandering camera crews.
The Iowa-born
showman had actually spent his youth living in Canada with his father, Isaac,
who had been born in Toronto Township, Upper Canada, while his mother, Mary Ann
Bonsell Laycock, was a native of Trenton, New Jersey. Young Cody grew up at the family home in what
is now known as Mississauga, in the wilds of Ontario, before he returned
stateside.
During this
1910 visit, Cody & Co. set up shop at Recreation Park in Vancouver, which
was south of the downtown core. The park
was surrounded by Smithe, Nelson, Homer and Hamilton Streets, with the entrance
at 977 Homer St. He attracted over 8,000
paying customers for each of the two performances – and this on workdays. Besides the famous Rough Riders, he had along
with him cowboys, cowgirls, frontiersmen, trappers, Indians, and all their
trained horses. He also brought an array
of non-Western exotic animals and foreign performers. There were German, Japanese, and Russian
troops, Argentine gauchos, Mexican Federal rurales, English Lancers, Scottish
footmen, Irish Dragoons, and elephants – all of which would have been unseen in
most North American circus events of the period. With the cost for personnel and animals, Cody
charged top dollar for tickets. The
seats went for a whopping 50 cents each, and double that for a reserved seat –
almost a full day’s wages. Children were
half price. At the time, the average
male and female would have been making about $58 and $38 a month,
respectively. A single steak meal would
have cost 25 cents. There was a reason
why the Nickelodeons and penny arcades were named that way. The little "newsreel" footage that
illustrated his show, whether it was projected or seen on a single-viewer
machine, must have thrilled audiences of the day.
Thanks to fellow Canadians Brian Wilson & John
Mackie, the Okanagan Archive Trust Society, and The Vancouver Sun.
By Michael Ferguson, David Shaw and John Lamontagne