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= northernstars.ca (web database) =

History:
Northernstars.ca, the Canadian Film Database, was founded by former radio broadcast executive Ralph Lucas as an online publication of his video production company in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. It was an offshoot of an un-produced documentary series entitled Northern Stars – The Canadian History of Hollywood and went online as northernstars.net in February 1998. When the .ca suffix became available, Northernstars.ca began to be used in 2001 while the original .net URL was retained.

Key events in the early and mid-2000s led to substantial growth of the website. With the rapid increase of online content, like Northernstars, the once popular film magazine Take One ceased publication in 2006. In 2007 Northernstars.ca acquired the digital archives of the magazine and hired the publication’s founder and publisher, Wyndham Wise, who remained associated with the website until his resignation in 2020. Many of the magazine’s best articles and interviews were republished on the website and one of its writers, Montréal-based Maurie Alioff, began writing about film in Québec for Northernstars.

The Northernstars Collection
Shortly after the turn of the century, the website was offered an extremely rare piece of Canadian ephemera, a song sheet from the Broadway play, The Widow Jones, which starred the Canadian-born actress, May Irwin. It was well over 100 years old and was in desperate need of restoration, but importantly it contained a note and was signed by Irwin. It is also a reflection of its times and although being highly offensive both in the images and words, it was a direct connection to the very beginning of the motion picture industry and should be saved. The Widow Jones was also one of the earliest films ever made and made by Edison Studios in 1896. Usually referred to as The Kiss, it was once thought to be the first movie ever shown in Canada when it was projected onto a makeshift screen in West End Park, Ottawa, on July 21, 1896. In the early Fall of 2007, the crumbling document was turned over to Beatrice Stock of Stock Restoration in Toronto and went through more than 50 hours of conservation and restoration over several months. It was the start of what became the Northernstars Collection, more than 1,500 items including rare stills, posters, lobby cards and glass slides.

Video: The Northernstars Interviews
Because the website was started by a video production and post-production company, there was from the beginning the thought of one day producing content for Northernstars. That opportunity came in 2008 when the website was offered an interview with film director Bruce McDonald on the set of his feature Pontypool. Over the following years, Northernstars recorded interviews with some of Canada’s best-known actors and filmmakers, including Sarah Polley, Don McKellar and Ali Hassan as well as such renowned filmmakers as the late Paul Almond, Don Carmody, Deepa Mehta, Kari Skogland, John Walker, Nettie Wild, Jennifer Podemski and many others. The onset of the COVID-19 pandemic caused a temporary halt in production.

Northernstars also maintains an ever-growing repository of Canadian movie trailers, a number approaching 400 in 2022.

Incorporation
As Northernstars passed its 20th anniversary online in 2018, its founder began to look for ways to secure its future. After exploring options to sell it, donate it or close it down, it was decided to form a company to oversee the website’s future. The Canadian Independent Visual and Digital Media Association Inc., a nonprofit corporation, was formed in 2020. It applied for and was approved to legally operate as Northernstars. With COVID-19 still growing, there was little action in the first two years of the new corporation’s life, but as the pandemic began to ease, several initiatives began, including the approval of Northernstars™ as an official trademark and the early development of a new ambitious interview series. As of July 2022, Northernstars.ca contains more than 8,000 pages of content and describes itself as The Canadian Film Database.

External links section
Bruce McDonald

May Irwin

Northernstars interviews

Canadian movie trailers

Ralph Lucas

Maurie Alioff

Awards

Actors and Actresses in Canada - Listings Canada

Rod Cameron https://www.b-westerns.com/cameron.htm]