Canadian writer Douglas Coupland, in a 1993 New York Times article, recalled the “primal patriotism” triggered by the iconic loon call of the Hinterland Who’s Who public service announcements of his youth.
The evocative capacity of the popular wildlife vignettes is further explored by Winnipeg scholar Andrew Burke in his recent book, Hinterland Remixed: Media, Memory, and the Canadian 1970s, which reflects on the decade’s persistence within Canadian cultural memory.
Taking Hinterland Who's Who as a jumping-off point, Burke unpacks the capacity of media to act as a mnemonic device that carries traces of the past into the present. Through an eclectic mix of case studies, he illustrates his hypothesis: Canadians have never really left the 1970s behind, and its vestiges still haunt our cultural landscape.
"Herring Gull," 1966, video still from "Hinterland Who's Who"
Burke, an English professor at the University of Winnipeg, focuses on film and television from 1970s, as well as contemporary artworks that express the decade’s influence through appropriation and remixing.
He treats his diverse sources democratically. For instance, the satirical Canadian sketch show SCTV, which first aired in 1976, is given the same generous criticality as Michael Snow’s 1971 arthouse titan, La Région Centrale. Burke chose the former primarily for its meta-televisual aspects, revealing the show’s ability to illustrate how quintessential cultural forms are inextricably linked with their medium.
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SCTV's high school quiz show, "High Q," 1978
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Michael Snow with camera apparatus specially designed for "La Région Centrale," 1971, as photographed on location by Joyce Wieland
Burke also considers contemporary works that critically re-author archival footage, excavating what he calls “the connection between format and feeling.”
For instance, he discusses Death by Popcorn: The Tragedy of the Winnipeg Jets, a tumultuous 2006 found-footage video collage produced by L’atelier national du Manitoba, a three-year filmmaking and art project based in Winnipeg. The use of worn videotape from decades past exemplifies this connection, creating a shabby aura that serves the film’s narrative of decline.
Burton Cummings as the saviour of the Winnipeg Jet's in L'Atelier national du Manitoba's "Death by Popcorn: The Tragedy of the Winnipeg Jets," 2005
Burke expresses caution for his own nostalgia, reconciling an appreciation for the past with the inequities and imperfections that shade it. While the book is primarily concerned with the 1970s, this conflict remains extraordinarily relevant today.
Proceeding with this undercurrent of self-awareness, Burke looks to artists "who refuse to concede the terrain of the past to the dictates of dominant memory."
Andrew Burke (photo by Justin Lee)
For instance, Geronimo Inutiq's 2015 multimedia installation ARCTICNOISE addresses the absence of Indigenous self-representation in the archive by remediating pianist Glenn Gould's 1967 radio documentary The Idea of North.
Inutiq gives voice to those who live in the North by adding new work as well as found sound and video footage from Isuma, an Inuit artist collective and production company.
Burke emphasizes Inutiq's ability to retain the feel of analogue materials while remixing their message, scrutinizing the affective dimension of obsolete media and the power its fragments hold when critically re-animated in the present.
Geronimo Inutiq, "ARCTICNOISE," 2015, installation view
By drawing unlikely connections, Burke demonstrates his dexterity with a broad range of materials. While some of the book’s legibility hinges on familiarity with the works he refers to, its appeal extends beyond an academic audience to anyone with a passion for cultural memory, analogue media or the many gems of Canadian public broadcasting. ■
Hinterland Remixed: Media, Memory, and the Canadian 1970s by Andrew Burke: McGill-Queen’s University Press, 2019.
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