THE CANADIANA PROJECT

MANDATE

The Canadiana Project is the production studio behind Canadiana, a documentary web series and virtual hub for all things Canadian history. Its mandate is to encourage greater knowledge and appreciation of Canadian history through the creation and distribution of Canadian history edu-tainment that is free and accessible to all Canadians.

CANADIANA WEB SERIES

Canadiana is a documentary web series that follows host Adam Bunch as he makes his way across the country in search of the most incredible tales in Canadian history. From Halifax Harbour to Vancouver Island, from major cities to secluded towns, Adam digs up the mind-blowing true stories that contribute to Canada’s unique identity, and presents them in a way that is relevant, engaging, and accessible.

As Canadians, we've seen our cities and towns turned into foreign movie sets, our lives flooded with the history of other nations. We want to do Canadian history the justice it deserves, and bury the phrase "Canadian history is boring," because it's anything but.

Our mission is to make videos that entertain and engage Canadians with the stuff you don't always learn about in history class. We cover the highs and the lows, the heroes and the villains, and everything in between. All in a form we think is best suited to the content: a high-quality digital series. We aim to release videos once a month with runtimes between 5 to 15 minutes. We've chosen to do this as a web series because we want to build a free and accessible tapestry of stories. Too often history is crammed into an arbitrary broadcast length—we want each story to take the time it needs, and no more. And rather than a linear series, we want to create an interconnected web of stories that will continue to grow indefinitely.

SPONSORS

Episodes of Canadiana are made possible by audience donations on Patreon. Canadiana Season 2, which premiered in July 2018 and consists of eight, monthly episodes, was supported by a generous grant from The Bell Fund. For information on how to contribute or become a sponsor, please visit our DONATE page.

TEAM

Featured
Ashley Brook
Ashley Brook

Ashley Brook is a Canadian producer/filmmaker with ten years of experience in the documentary film and factual television industry. She is president at The Canadiana Project and co-creator/producer of the Canadiana series. Ashley is also co-owner and head of production at Black Lodge Films in Toronto. Aside from her own work, she has credits on a variety of internationally acclaimed projects including series and one-offs for HBO, CBC, Discovery Channel, National Geographic and VICE, cinematic virtual reality series like Equator 360: The Line of Life, and Canadian feature docs like Long Time Running and Anthropocene: The Human Epoch. Ashley holds a degree in Communications (‘09), and post-graduate level diplomas in Documentary Filmmaking (‘09) and Film & Television Post-Production (‘11).

Adam Bunch (Host/Narrator)
Adam Bunch (Host/Narrator)

Adam Bunch is a Canadian author and the creator of The Toronto Dreams Project. His first book, The Toronto Book of the Dead (Dundurn Press, 2017), is nominated for a 2018 Heritage Toronto Award. He writes an history column for Spacing Magazine and his articles about Canadian history have also appeared in The Huffington Post, Torontoist, and Yonge Street. In 2012, his work on The Toronto Dreams Project earned an honourable mention for the Governor General’s History Award for Community Programming; the project has been featured by a variety of media outlets, including CBC Radio’s Metro Morning, The Toronto Star and The Globe and Mail, and has been put on display by prestigious cultural institutions like the Art Gallery of Ontario. He's a former columnist for the Canadian Music Hall of Fame, and a former member of the Polaris Music Prize jury. Adam has lectured about history at the Royal Ontario Museum, The Toronto Public Library, PitchTalks, U of T, York University, Seneca College, and Trampoline Hall.

Kyle Cucco
Kyle Cucco

Kyle Cucco is a Toronto-based video producer and the co-creator of the Canadiana series. Kyle has been active in the television industry for more than five years, spending most of his time on the set of documentaries and factual series. As a freelancer he has worked across numerous departments including grip, camera, props, research + development, and sound. He holds a degree in Film Studies and English (2010) from Wilfrid Laurier University and a Certificate in Film and Television Production (2013) from Ryerson University in Toronto.

Josef Beeby
Josef Beeby

Josef Beeby has been working in documentary since graduating Ryerson University, on shows for History Television and Discovery Channel. He has also taken on roles as writer, director, editor and director of photography on a variety of independent documentaries, including 'I Thought I Told You To Shut Up!!' which screened at the 2015 Hot Docs film festival. He is currently the Head of Post Production at Saloon Media in Toronto and a core member of the production and post-production team on the Canadiana series.