The First Canadian-Made Movie

Filmed by a farmer in Manitoba

Canada has a very long history when it comes to making films. In fact, one of the earliest films ever released commercially, The Kiss, features Canadian May Irwin.

But what was the first film ever made in Canada?

It can be difficult to know for sure, but most believe that it was a film made by a farmer named James Freer called Ten Years In Manitoba.

Born in England in 1855, he was a newspaper reporter who came to Manitoba in 1888 and settled south of Winnipeg. He began to homestead but quickly developed a fascination for the new technology known as films.

He started to film various scenes in his area including people working in a wheatfield, a harvest scene as trains passed by, and the arrival of the CPR Express to Winnipeg. Other scenes depicted his home and family.

There is also footage of Thomas Greenway, the Premier of Manitoba, stooking grain on his farm. This makes Greenway one of the earliest politicians to appear in a film.

Once the film was finished, it was used by the Canadian Pacific Railway to encourage immigration to the province. The company exhibited it in the United Kingdom in April 1898.

The film, sadly, is now lost.

As for it being the first Canadian-made film by a Canadian filmmaker, some dispute this. The Manitoba Historical Society has found evidence that part of the film may have consisted of footage made by other filmmakers a few months earlier, including Winnipeg bartender Richard Hardie.

As for Freer, his film was so successful that he did a second tour of films in 1902, which was sponsored by Sir Clifford Sifton, the Canadian Minister of the Interior. Once again, the plan was to convince people to come to the Canadian West to settle.

That second tour was not as successful.

Freer didn’t make anymore films after that. He eventually worked for the Winnipeg Free Press and died in 1933.