Canadian Made - Season 1 (2012)

'Hewers of wood and drawers of water' is how Canadians were traditionally (and pejoratively) dismissed, abroad and (shockingly) at home too. If Canadian Made proves anything, it's that this old image is a load of beaver dung. This episode tells the stories of three inventions that utterly change our view of trees: the totem pole, newsprint and the water bomber.

Canada: home of the superhero, fighting for truth, justice and the Canadian way! Wait a minute... What do superheroes have to do with Canada? This episode looks at three very different Canadian inventions that had world-wide influence: Superman, electronic music (electronic sackbut) and Trivial pursuit.

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Our official summer and winter sports are really variations on the same theme: brutally bulldozing through your opponents to hammer a hard thing past a poor fellow stuck in a net. But the main pieces of equipment behind the action have long and fascinating histories that come out of First Nations traditions.

The traditional Canadian diet tends to be basic meat and potatoes. And perhaps it's proof that people must have delights in their lives, that most of the foods Canadians can claim to have invented are all about putting a little unnecessary sweetness into the daily routine. "Sweet Treats" is about the yummy stuff we've discovered: maple syrup, ginger ale and chocolate bars.

This episode is all about how Canadians have translated our cheerful ability to attend to the little things in life into some brilliant amenities that have made a world of difference for people living in this country: screws that can be used with one hand, bags that harness stinking garbage and bins that keep out the hungry intruders.

As long as Canadians have had garages and basements, there have been guys holed up in them tinkering with weird vehicular contraptions and dreaming big. Some turn out to be noisy boondoggles and some to be brilliant breakthroughs. This show features a jetpack powered by water, a helicopter you can build in your shed and an electric unicycle that converts into a motorcycle for high speed getaways.

Survival, as Margaret Atwood said, is our middle name. We have always had to get by in a landscape and climate which are blithely capable of killing us. This episode is about the technologies we have invented to help us scoff at the elements: a house built from the softest powder snow, a coat fashioned from good ole fur and a suit that cannot be crushed by even the weight of the deep blue sea.

"Revolutionary Perspectives" reports on this wonderful trait through the stories of three visionary inventions: the microscope that reveals the building blocks of life; a form of surgery that allows doctors to operate on patients many kilometers away and an observatory that provides a window on the infinite mysteries of marine biology.

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Just as we seem to be congenital peacemakers, so too are Canadians a nation of healers. In this episode we look at the remarkable Canadian stories behind the invention that keeps arrhythmic hearts ticking, the rebirth of a forgotten language that allows the mute to speak and the discovery of the basic building block of complex life forms - which promises to give medicine truly staggering powers.