Undiscovered Canada

When the first Europeans arrived on the eastern shores of a mysterious ‘new found land’, they saw a beautiful land of plains and forests, mountains and oceans, filled with an incredible variety of wildlife: whales and bears, bison and wolves, caribou and beavers. This was an unexplored and pristine nature – or so the European explorers thought…

But this land, today known as Canada, was not an untouched wilderness. Indeed, people had been living here for a long time. About 15,000 years ago, at the end of the ice age, all of Canada lay frozen beneath a layer of ice.

It was only when the ice began to melt and the glaciers started to retreat that the land beneath was exposed – and quite soon invaded by an amazing array of plants and animals, including one very special mammal…

Humans explored the virgin land – seeking plants to eat, trees for shelter and firewood, fish to catch, animals to hunt. We too were only trying our best to survive.

The Canadian landscapes, this seemingly untouched ‘wilderness’ we see today, has been forged by the hand of man. Over thousands of years, nature was shaped by humans – initially by the First Nations people, then by European colonizers – to fit their needs and enable them to survive.

This four-part blue chip series follows in the footsteps of the first European explorers on a journey of exploration – to re-discover this remarkable and beautiful land with its fabulous landscapes and wildlife as it has never been seen before.