Adventures in Rainbow Country and the Narration of Nationhood

The Canadian family-adventure series Adventures in Rainbow Country followed in the wake of the deeply optimistic 1967 Centennial celebrations and reflects the country's long tradition of nation building. Given the rise of the Separatist and Red Power movements in Canada, the program's depiction of the harmonious co-existence of anglophone, francophone, and Indigenous populations is hardly an accurate representation of the era. Its strength lies in both its truths and its untruths, however. While postmodernism has taught us to question dangerous fictions, unmasking injustice, it can also stifle change, since it offers no alternatives to reality. This essay examines the contradictions behind the program's creation and reception in an attempt to explain its lasting impact. La serie d'aventure pour la famille intitulee Adventures in Rainbow Country suit les celebrations tres optimistes du Centenaire de 1967 et reflete la longue tradition canadienne de la construction d'une nation. Etant donne la poussee du mouvement separatiste et du pouvoir rouge au Canada, la coexistence harmonieuse des Anglophones, Francophones et Autochtones decrite dans le programme est vraiment peu representative de cette periode. La force du programme repose toutefois sur ses verites et ses mensonges. Bien que le postmodernisme nous ait appris a questionner la fiction dangereuse en demasquant l'injustice, ceci peut aussi restreindre le changement puisqu'il n'offre aucune solution de rechange a la realite. Cet article examine les contradictions devoilees dans la creation et la reception du programme afin d'essayer d'expliquer ses repercussions durables. Not long after Bobby Gimby's Centennial song, "CA-NA-DA," became the number one hit of the day, television audiences saw the arrival of a new Canadian family-adventure series, Adventures in Rainbow Country. The immensely popular program left indelible impressions on its viewers, but much like the period that led to its creation, the series is replete with contradiction. Shot in the summer and fall of 1969, following on the heels of Canada's Centennial, the program demonstrates Canada's ongoing attempt to create unity out of diversity. The passionate optimism of the Centennial celebrations served only to mask the simmering tensions between Canada's diverse populations. With the rise of the Separatist movement, Quebec had its own vision of the future, and Native peoples were also reluctant to join in the festivities. This was hardly surprising: while the nation was ecstatic with pride and prosperity, 30% of Native babies were so undernourished that they were unlikely to survive, and the life expectancy of an Inuk at birth was 50 years, of a Native Indian, 66 years, and a white Canadian, 76 years (Berton 1997, 140). In spite of these conditions, many Canadians were truly convinced that theirs was a great, powerful, and just society, and that they could show the world how to do things better. Growing out of one of the nation's most significant periods of optimism, Adventures in Rainbow Country both reflects and enhances the decade's apparent faith in nation. This essay argues that although the program was undeniably based on a contradiction, it is precisely this combination of truth and untruth that made it so effective, giving it a significant place in Canada's long tradition of nationbuilding initiatives.1 Riding on the huge success of the children's program Forest Rangers, writer and creator William Davidson and executive producer Ralph C. Ellis set about creating what was to become a landmark for Canadian television, helping to establish the nation's action-adventure genre, which included such shows as Forest Rangers and Seaway in the 1960s, The Beachcombers and Ritter's Cove in the 1970s, and Danger Bay in the 1980s. From June to October of 1969, Manitou Productions Ltd. of Toronto filmed 26 half-hour episodes of Adventures in Rainbow Country in Whitefish Falls, on the northern shores of Lake Huron, making it the first Canadian action-adventure show to be shot on location. …