Land and Sea
| Land and Sea | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Genre | Documentary |
| Presented by | Pauline Thornhill |
| Narrated by | Pauline Thornhill, Jane Adey |
| Theme music composer | Sandy Morris |
| Country of origin | Canada |
| Original language | English |
| No. of seasons | 45 |
| No. of episodes | At least 193 (further research required) (list of episodes) |
| Production | |
| Executive producers | Diane Humber (regional director), Denise Wilson (acting) |
| Producer | Pauline Thornhill |
| Running time | 30 minutes (including commercials) |
| Original release | |
| Network | CBNT-DT |
| Release | 1964 – Present |
Land and Sea is a locally produced Canadian documentary television show broadcast in Newfoundland and Labrador on CBNT-DT in St. John's, and on all CBC Television outlets throughout the province. It has been on the air since 1964 (interrupted only by a short cancellation in the early 1990s, but revived after an outcry from fans), and is the longest running regional television program on CBC Television.[1] Originally a black-and-white program, it began broadcasting in colour in the late 1960s/early 1970s. There is also a Maritime version of Land and Sea which is broadcast on the full CBC network on Sunday afternoons, and episodes from that version are often alternated with Newfoundland-based episodes.
Hosts
There have been several hosts of Land and Sea over the years. Dave Quinton was one of the show's original hosts. Other hosts with Quinton included Rab Carnell, Hal Andrews, Des Brown, Mike Martin, Herb Davis, and Paul Harrington. Bill Kelly joined the show in 1983 and stayed until he retired in 1993. The current host is Pauline Thornhill. Some episodes are narrated by Fred Greening.
Episodes
Noted episodes
- On January 6, 1986, a well-known Christmas episode called "A Fortune Bay Christmas" was broadcast. That episode was, appropriately enough, filmed in Fortune Bay. It has been re-broadcast several times in recent years. A song in the episode -- "Any Mummers Allowed In?"—was used in commercials for Purity products in Newfoundland and Labrador in the early 1990s.
- Though not as well known as "A Fortune Bay Christmas", a 1984 episode videotaped in the Codroy Valley on the southwest coast of Newfoundland called "West Coast Dairy" featured Gerard Cormier and his dairy farm. Twenty years later, Mr. Cormier and Brent Chaffey joined together to launch a new line of yogurt products with the brand name Good Natured.[2][3]
- Though there is plenty of controversy now regarding the seal hunt (also known as a "seal fishery"), an episode from 1977 (itself a rebroadcast from a few years earlier) called the "Newfoundland Sealing Disaster" featured an interview with survivor Cecil Mouland as he told about what happened on the S.S. Newfoundland back in 1914. (A novel has been written about the Newfoundland sealing disaster called Death On The Ice, written by Cassie Brown.)
- In 2013, a viewer discovered a brief shot of a rare burrowing owl that had migrated from Florida, seen in Nova Scotia during an episode of Land and Sea.[4]