Network: CBC Television Network
Broadcast Run: 1969 to 1970
Broadcast Medium: Television
Aired at various times, from January to December, 1971. Repeated from February 1972 to June 1974.
This short series of 13 half hour programs featured Tommy Tompkins, outdoorsman and environmentalist. The series was repeated several times on the network, and broadcast both in afternoon time slots, aimed at young viewers, and in prime time, directed at adult audiences.
This program chronicled many of Tompkins’ adventures in the wilds of British Columbia. It was a combination travelogue and expedition show, with Tompkins often taking all his equipment and a film camera, alone in the wilderness. The series was spawned by a successful special called,Tommy Tompkins: Bushman, which aired in 1970.
The executive producer for Tommy Tompkins’ Wildlife Country was Ray Hazzan, and the producer Denis Hargrave.
In addition to the general attraction of such nature programs to Canadian television audiences, Tompkins’s series complemented other CBC productions that explored the country’s landscape, wildlife, and natural resources, and communicated a greater sensitivity to environmental issues and problems of conservation.
[See: This Land of Ours and One Northern Summer]
Written by John Corcelli – September, 2005