The National Dream was a 1974 Canadian television docudrama

Docudrama

In film, television programming and staged theatre, docudrama is a documentary-style genre that features dramatized re-enactments of actual historical events. As a neologism, the term is often confused with docufiction....

 miniseries

Miniseries

A miniseries , in a serial storytelling medium, is a television show production which tells a story in a limited number of episodes. The exact number is open to interpretation; however, they are usually limited to fewer than a whole season. The term "miniseries" is generally a North American term...

 based on Pierre Berton

Pierre Berton

Pierre Francis de Marigny Berton, was a noted Canadian author of non-fiction, especially Canadiana and Canadian history, and was a well-known television personality and journalist....

's 1970 book of the same name

The National Dream (book)

The National Dream is a 1970 Canadian non-fiction book by Pierre Berton describing the planning and commencement of the Canadian Pacific Railway between 1871 and 1881....

, plus Berton's 1971 follow-up book The Last Spike

The Last Spike (book)

The Last Spike is a 1971 Canadian non-fiction book by Pierre Berton describing the construction and completion of the Canadian Pacific Railway between 1881 and 1885. It is a sequel to Berton's 1970 book The National Dream...

.

The series portrayed the concept and construction of the Canadian Pacific Railway

Canadian Pacific Railway

The Canadian Pacific Railway , formerly also known as CP Rail between 1968 and 1996, is a historic Canadian Class I railway founded in 1881 and now operated by Canadian Pacific Railway Limited, which began operations as legal owner in a corporate restructuring in 2001...

 during the late 19th century, with Berton himself as narrator. The National Dream combined dramatic reconstructions of the events (directed by Eric Till

Eric Till

Eric Till is a British film and television director working in Canada, the United States, and Europe since the 1960s.-Career:...

) with documentary content (directed by James Murray). Production required two years and cost CAD

Canadian dollar

The Canadian dollar is the currency of Canada. As of 2007, the Canadian dollar is the 7th most traded currency in the world. It is abbreviated with the dollar sign $, or C$ to distinguish it from other dollar-denominated currencies...

 2 million.

CBC Television

CBC Television

CBC Television is a Canadian television network owned by the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, the national public broadcaster.Although the CBC is supported by public funding, the television network supplements this funding with commercial advertising revenue, in contrast to CBC Radio which are...

 premiered the 8-part hour-long series on 3 March 1974 and aired its final instalment on 28 April 1974. The series' rated audience of three million within Canada set a record for CBC in terms of dramatic programming. The series was also seen in modified form on BBC

BBC

The British Broadcasting Corporation is a British public service broadcaster. Its headquarters is at Broadcasting House in the City of Westminster, London. It is the largest broadcaster in the world, with about 23,000 staff...

 in the United Kingdom

United Kingdom

The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...

.

External links

• University Directory of CBC Television Series: The National Dream, accessed 5 June 2008