Christian Gammon-Roy
Tribune
Sturgeon Falls will be the focus of an upcoming episode of the TVO documentary series Crossroads: Beyond Boom & Bust. A film crew from Alibi Entertainment, the series’ production company, went around town gathering shots and interviewing residents during the week of August 18th, and into the weekend. The show focuses on towns that have “gone bust” due to the seemingly catastrophic loss of an important industry, and where they find themselves in the present. Jacob Ulrich, series producer, took a moment to talk about the show, and what makes Sturgeon Falls a subject of interest.
“What we do is we chronicle the history of the town, and see what made the town boom, and then what eventually made the town bust. We like to come in and pick up where the town currently is, and we also like to talk about the future of where this town is going as well as what possible obstacles could be in the way of that future. That leads us to the title which is Crossroads,” says Ulrich, explaining the premise of the show. For Sturgeon Falls, the determining event is the closure of the Weyerhaeuser mill back in 2002.
The show’s title is meant to evoke the sense that the town is at a pivotal point where they may have moved on from the “bust,” but they still have more work to do to achieve a future vision. “One of the things about our show is that we always look very positively towards the future, and we like to set the scene and show our audience where the town currently is and highlight the people that are working to make it better,” adds Ulrich, mentioning people like Gayle Primeau, head of the Sturgeon Falls Beautification committee. Primeau was interviewed for the show, and her committee put in the spotlight as people who actively work to drive the community forward.
There are many towns in Ontario that would fit the criteria for the show. However, Ulrich explains, there’s more to telling a compelling story than simply recounting history. Plenty of other things factor into the decision to pick a certain community to shine a light on. “It comes down to a couple things. First and foremost, it’s what makes a town unique in its own way, and I think with Sturgeon Falls having a primarily francophone community in northern Ontario is in and of itself unique. Then, once we have sort of the hook, the most important thing is connecting with members of the community to get their stories. This show is only as good as the personal stories and the personal stakes that we get once we start speaking to people. We could have a wonderful idea, and a town that feels like it’s such a right fit for the show, but if we begin researching and the characters aren’t convincing, and the story doesn’t have conviction, then we don’t really have a show.”
According to Ulrich, Crossroads began during the pandemic and has two seasons under its belt, available to stream on the TVO website. “The folks at TVO have been champions for the show. They really, really believe in it, it’s one of their higher-rated shows. (…) This feels very special, and they’re very invested in telling these specific, and unique, and very Ontario stories,” says the producer. The process to get these stories on air begins with some initial research into the town, and then the episode is pitched to the broadcaster. Apparently, the pitch for Sturgeon Falls was a winner.
“The feedback that we received from the network on the pitch is that they were really excited. There are previous episodes of Crossroads that deal with language culture, and the loss of that culture, within small towns. What they challenged us to do, was find a new way to tell that story. What they were really happy about, was that after speaking to folks from the Lighthouse group, Club Calumet, and other people in town, I think that they realized that putting this in a very smaller, more personal story is what’s going to make it stronger. It’s less focusing on the bigger picture of what’s happening, which we are obviously telling that story, but more so how things are affecting people on a day-to-day basis,” describes Ulrich, referencing the season 2 episode on Kapuskasing and its focus on francophone culture.
“Some of the first places that we usually reach out to are museums and local historical organisations, which really help us fill in the history. Once we were in contact with the Sturgeon River House Museum, it kind of just opened up the town for us, and we were able to connect with some amazing characters,” says Ulrich. He mentions that the show’s producers began to notice a pattern in people’s perspective. “There are people who would love the town to expand and grow, but at the same time, that could lead to the dilution of French language culture, which is something that people feel very strongly about and don’t want. That is one of the crossroads that we found most interesting when it came to Sturgeon Falls,” he describes.
