An exhibition of photographs by the National Film Board of Canada
Presented by the
Department of External Affairs

Une exposition de photographies de l'Office national du film du Canada
présentée par le
Ministère des Affaires extérieures

To celebrate the two hundredth anniversary of the founding of the United States of America, the National Film Board of Canada commissioned a special photographic study. A team of thirty-two photographers was asked to document the people and the land of the United States-Canada border. The people of the two countries share a 5,525-mile border which runs through woods, plains, lakes, and, in a few instances, houses. They share the skies, the winds, the sunrises and the smells of pine, fish, clover, cattle, and smoke.

The photographic team spent four seasons crossing the border back and forth, staying within twenty miles, taking and printing 60,000 pictures. One photographer made six attempts (five aborted, one successful) to land on a remote lake near a metal marker between Alaska and the Yukon; one broke a leg when a prairie wind tipped over her car; and another hung suspended for several hours above the bridge at Ogdensburg, New York, waiting for an appropriate ship to pass below.

The National Film Board of Canada selected 220 of the pictures to produce the book, BETWEEN FRIENDS/ENTRE AMIS, in honour of the American Revolution Bicentennial, as an enduring expression of the friendship of Canadians for the people of the United States of America.

Prime Minister Pierre Elliott Trudeau presented the prime copy of BETWEEN FRIENDS/ ENTRE AMIS to President Gerald Ford on June 16, 1976. The book was encased in a bird's-eye maple replica of the lap desk used by David Thompson, a nineteenth century explorer and surveyor. Another 19,999 copies were given to libraries, universities and prominent people in both countries.

The exhibit which you are viewing is an edited version of the complete BETWEEN FRIENDS EXHIBIT, which was first shown in Chicago in 1976. This presentation is made available by Texas Humanities Resource Center, supported by grants from the Government of Canada and the Texas Council for the Humanities.