CBC: Canada: A People's History

Recipient of the 2001 Pierre Berton Award 

November 21, 2011

Toronto, Ontario

Recognized for their epic 17-part history series, Canada: A People's History, the immensely popular prime-time program that, in its first season, attracted an average of 2.1 million viewers per episode.

  • Episode 1: When the World Began... Time Span: 15,000 BC–1800 AD.
  • Episode 2: Samuel de Champlain — Adventurers and Mystics… Time Span: 1540–1670.
  • Episode 3: Jacques Cartier — Claiming the Wilderness… Time Span: 1670–1755.
  • Episode 4: View of the Taking of Quebec, Sept. 13, 1759 — Battle for a Continent… Time Span: 1754–1775.
  • Episode 5: The Battle of Tippecanoe, Nov 7, 1811 — A Question of Loyalties… Time Span: 1775–1815.
  • Episode 6: Shooting the Rapids, Quebec, 1879 — The Pathfinders… Time Span: 1670–1850.
  • Episode 7: Back view of the Church of St-Eustache and dispersion of the Insurgents, Dec 4, 1837 — Artist: Lord Charles Beauclerk — Rebellion and Reform… Time Span: 1815–1850.
  • Episode 8: Convention at Charlottetown, PEI, Sep. 11, 1864 — The Great Enterprise… Time Span: 1850–1867.
  • Episode 9: Thomas D'Arcy McGee — From Sea to Sea… Time Span: 1867–1873.
  • Episode 10: Louis Riel Addressing the Jury during his trial for treason after the failure of the NorthWest Rebellion, Court House, Sask, 1885 — Taking the West… Time Span: 1873–1896.
  • Episode 11: Ukrainian wedding party, early 1900s — The Great Transformation… Time Span: 1896–1915.
  • Episode 12: Prime Minister Robert Borden reviewing the troops in France — Ordeal by Fire… Time Span: 1915–1929.
  • Episode 13: The Depression in the 1930s, British Columbia — Hard Times…Time Span: 1929 to 1940.
  • Episode 14: World War II — The Crucible… Time Span: 1940–1946.
  • Episode 15: Comfort and Fear… Time Span: 1946 to 1964.
  • Episode 16: Prime Minster Pierre E. Trudeau — Years of Hope and Anger… Time Span: 1964–1976.
  • Episode 17: In an Uncertain World… Time Span: 1976–1990.

More Berton recipients

Peter C. Newman

Author of nineteen books, recognized for his major contributions in documenting Canadian corporate and business history in an accessible way.

Bob Johnstone: Today in History

CBC Radio journalist — Bob Johnstone, honoured for his “Today in History,” radio vignettes.

The CRB Foundation

The CRB Foundation won for producing its popular Heritage Minutes series, the 60-second mini-movies highlighting Canada's past, seen in theatres and on French and English television. Now known as the Historica Minutes.

Jacques Lacoursière

Jacques Lacoursière is a prolific and renowned French-Canadian author and historian who is to Québec, what Pierre Berton is to English Canada.

James H. Gray

James H. Gray, now deceased, was a well-known chronicler of Western Canadian history and author of such popular and accessible books as Red Lights on the Prairies, The Boy from Winnipeg and Booze.