Blackfly is a Canadian sitcom which ran on the Global Television Network

Global Television Network

Global Television Network is an English language privately owned television network in Canada, owned by Calgary-based Shaw Communications, as part of its Shaw Media division...

 for two seasons in 2001 and 2002. Although shot single-camera like most Canadian comedies, this series was shot on film rather than videotape and contains a laugh track

Laugh track

A laugh track is a separate soundtrack invented by Charles "Charley" Douglass, with the artificial sound of audience laughter, made to be inserted into television programming of comedy shows and sitcoms.The term "laugh track" does not apply to the genuine audience laughter on shows that shoot in...

 rather than making use of the usual live audience because most scenes take place outdoors.

The show is set in 18th-century Canada back "in days when beaver

Beaver

The beaver is a primarily nocturnal, large, semi-aquatic rodent. Castor includes two extant species, North American Beaver and Eurasian Beaver . Beavers are known for building dams, canals, and lodges . They are the second-largest rodent in the world...

 fur was good as gold" and features a twisted "Blackadder

Blackadder

Blackadder is the name that encompassed four series of a BBC1 historical sitcom, along with several one-off instalments. All television programme episodes starred Rowan Atkinson as anti-hero Edmund Blackadder and Tony Robinson as Blackadder's dogsbody, Baldrick...

meets F Troop

F Troop

F Troop is a satirical American television sitcom that originally aired for two seasons on ABC-TV. It debuted in the United States on September 14, 1965 and concluded its run on April 6, 1967 with a total of 65 episodes. The first season of 34 episodes was filmed in black-and-white, but the show...

"-style Canadian history in which Benny "Blackfly" Broughton (Ron James

Ron James (comedian)

Ron James is a Canadian stand-up comedian.James was born in Glace Bay, Nova Scotia; his family later moved to Halifax during his youth. He attended Acadia University, studying history and political science with the intention of becoming a history teacher...

), a Maritimes

Maritimes

The Maritime provinces, also called the Maritimes or the Canadian Maritimes, is a region of Eastern Canada consisting of three provinces, New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, and Prince Edward Island. On the Atlantic coast, the Maritimes are a subregion of Atlantic Canada, which also includes the...

-born undersized but ambitious general jack-of-all-trades at the isolated Fort Simpson-Eaton

Eaton's

The T. Eaton Co. Limited was once Canada's largest department store retailer. It was founded in 1869 in Toronto by Timothy Eaton, an Irish immigrant. Eaton's grew to become a retail and social institution in Canada, with stores across the country, buying offices across the globe, and a catalogue...

 on the colonial Canadian frontier, is joined by the prissy by-the-book upper class British officer Corporal Entwhistle (Colin Mochrie

Colin Mochrie

Colin Andrew Mochrie is a Scottish Canadian actor and improvisational comedian, most famous for his appearances on the British and US versions of television improvisation show Whose Line Is It Anyway?.-Early life:...

) whom he is usually able to talk into his latest doomed-to-failure get-rich-quick scheme

Get-rich-quick scheme

A get-rich-quick scheme is a plan to acquire high rates of return for a small investment. The term "get rich quick" has been used to describe shady investments since at least the early 1900s....

.

Other characters include Blackfly's boss at the Hudson's Bay Company

Hudson's Bay Company

The Hudson's Bay Company , abbreviated HBC, or "The Bay" is the oldest commercial corporation in North America and one of the oldest in the world. A fur trading business for much of its existence, today Hudson's Bay Company owns and operates retail stores throughout Canada...

-style trading post

Trading post

A trading post was a place or establishment in historic Northern America where the trading of goods took place. The preferred travel route to a trading post or between trading posts, was known as a trade route....

, the rowdy, penny-pinching Scottish

Scotland

Scotland is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. Occupying the northern third of the island of Great Britain, it shares a border with England to the south and is bounded by the North Sea to the east, the Atlantic Ocean to the north and west, and the North Channel and Irish Sea to the...

 storekeeper MacTavish (James Kee), Misty Moon (Cheri Maracle

Cheri Maracle

Cheri Maracle is a Canadian actress and musician. A member of the Six Nations of the Grand River First Nation, she is best known for her roles in the television series Blackfly and Moccasin Flats, the 2007 film Tkaronto and stage productions of Tomson Highway's Ernestine Shuswap Gets Her Trout.As a...

), a wryly wise native

First Nations

First Nations is a term that collectively refers to various Aboriginal peoples in Canada who are neither Inuit nor Métis. There are currently over 630 recognised First Nations governments or bands spread across Canada, roughly half of which are in the provinces of Ontario and British Columbia. The...

 barkeep who loves watching the white man blow his money on whisky

Whisky

Whisky or whiskey is a type of distilled alcoholic beverage made from fermented grain mash. Different grains are used for different varieties, including barley, malted barley, rye, malted rye, wheat, and corn...

 at her Leg Hold Trap Bar between visits by her boisterous if distinctly anglophobic

Anglophobia

Anglophobia means hatred or fear of England or the English people. The term is sometimes used more loosely for general Anti-British sentiment...

 French Canadian voyageur

Coureur des bois

A coureur des bois or coureur de bois was an independent entrepreneurial French-Canadian woodsman who traveled in New France and the interior of North America. They travelled in the woods to trade various things for fur....

 lover Dijon (Marcel Jeannin), tough but good-natured local tribal leader Chief Smack-Your-Face-In (Lorne Cardinal

Lorne Cardinal

Lorne Cardinal is a stage, television and film actor, best known for portraying character Davis Quinton on the Canadian television series Corner Gas.-Personal life:...

), masochistic and desperate-to-be-martyred Jesuit priest Brother Jacques (Stephen Coats), the deranged and drunken fort commander Colonel Boyle (Richard Donat

Richard Donat

Richard Donat is a Canadian actor known for his roles in Canadian and American television. He is currently into his second season as a cast member of the Canadian-American TV series, Haven...

), and his buxom blond daughter Lady Hammond (Shauna Black), the hot-blooded young princess of privilege who had no idea what she was getting into when she decided to join her father in Canada after becoming a widow

Widow

A widow is a woman whose spouse has died, while a widower is a man whose spouse has died. The state of having lost one's spouse to death is termed widowhood or occasionally viduity. The adjective form is widowed...

.

Changes to the show during the second season included the arrival of Misty's nasty little witch of a mother Mugwump Moon (Madeleine Bergeron) and the departure of Entwhistle who had inherited his twin brother's title and estate in England, although with his usual luck he found himself stuck back at the fort by the end of the series.

The show was produced by Salter Street Films

Salter Street Films

Salter Street Films was a Canadian television and film production company based in Halifax, Nova Scotia.- History :The company was founded by brothers Paul and Michael Donovan in 1983. Paul Donovan was trained as a director at the London Film School; Michael graduated from Dalhousie University’s...

, and rerun

Rerun

A rerun or repeat is a re-airing of an episode of a radio or television broadcast. The invention of the rerun is generally credited to Desi Arnaz. There are two types of reruns—those that occur during a hiatus, and those that occur when a program is syndicated. Reruns can also be, as the...

s began showing during the fall of 2009 on APTN

Aboriginal Peoples Television Network

Aboriginal Peoples Television Network is a Canadian broadcast and cable television network. APTN airs and produces programs made by, for and about Aboriginal Peoples...

.

The opening and closing theme was done by Blain Morris.