‘Mysteries in the Archives: 1910 Buffalo Bill’

 

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