Hinterland Who's Who

Hinterland Who's Who is best known as a series of 60-second public service announcements profiling Canadian animals and birds, produced by Environment Canada Wildlife Service and the National Film Board of Canada in the 1960s and 70s, and re-launched by the Canadian Wildlife Federation in the 2000s. In the original announcements, a distinctive refrain of flute music (John Cacavas' Flute Poem) opens the ad, and is accompanied by the low-key style of the narrator, John Livingston, describing the animal over footage of it taken in the wild.

At the end of each message viewers were reminded, "For more information on the [animal], contact the Canadian Wildlife Service, in Ottawa." Newer segments ended with, "For more information on the [animal], why not contact the Canadian Wildlife Service in Ottawa?", with later installments including its postal code, K1A 0H3.

A French version of this series was also produced, as Faune et flore du pays (The country's fauna and flora).

In 2003 the Canadian Wildlife Federation, in cooperation with the Government of Canada, began producing new episodes of Hinterland Who's Who, featuring two versions:

• those containing the quiet narrative of the original series of commercials
• those containing modern background music, directed at younger viewers

These versions are often hosted on-camera and voiced by a female Canadian Wildlife Service worker, concluding with, "To learn more about [subject], and how you can protect it, visit www.hww.ca."

In both cases, the new Hinterland Who's Who narrative includes suggestions for conservation along with the description of the animal and its behaviour.

In popular culture

These announcements became a widely recognized and often-parodied feature of Canadian pop culture.

• SCTV episode 142 featured a spoof of the Hinterland Who's Who "Woodchuck" episode, voiced by John Candy. The woodchuck also makes a brief appearance in episode 143.

• A spoof Hinterland Who's Who episode entitled "The Wood Spider" credited to "First Church of Christ, Filmmaker" was released on YouTube in 2006 and has garnered over 26 million views as of early 2012. The video purported to show the behavior of wood spiders given various drugs, such as alcohol, caffeine, and THC, a mocking reference to the 1940s research of Dr. Peter N. Witt, who showed that giving drugs to spiders alters their web building behavior..

See also

• Heritage Minutes, sixty-second short films, each illustrating an important moment in Canadian history

External links

• Hinterland Who's Who homepage (current series)
• Hinterland Who's Who: The Robin (original series)