Not every journey begins with a choice.
Some migrations are decided by governments, by war, by rising water, by the stroke of an official pen on a document the displaced never signed. They are carried in the body long after the moving is done — in the accent someone spent decades erasing, in the family name that changed at a border, in the land that was flooded before anyone could say goodbye.
The re:Location Documentary Series tells four of those stories. Four Canadian communities. Four forced displacements across different eras and geographies. And one question running beneath every frame: What do people carry when everything else is taken?
About the Series
The re:Location Documentary Series is a collection of compelling, socially relevant stories that need to be told, especially in light of ongoing efforts to re-examine historical events and achieve reconciliation by acknowledging past injustice to Canadians who have been marginalized and arbitrarily uprooted for political and economic reasons.
This documentary series was directed by Sun-Kyung (Sunny) Yi, Co-ordinator and a Professor of Seneca Polytechnic’s Documentary Filmmaking Institute (DFI) and Documentary Non-Fiction Media (DNM) programs and Faculty Lead for the Seneca Film Institute, and produced by the Royal Canadian Geographic Societyin partnership with Sound Venture Productions.
The series is composed of four episodes aired on CPAC (Canadian Public Affairs Channel)in April 2021. The entire documentary series was rebroadcast on CPAC as part of an encore marathon presentation on July 1, 2021.
Each episode portrays a culturally and geographically diverse community from different periods in Canadian history that has been involuntarily and sometimes inhumanely relocated, often with devastating consequences.
Every episode in re:Location is both a story of loss and rebirth as the surviving members of the communities reveal their resilience and devotion to preserving the essential values and the most important legacies of their respective communities and cultures. Their stories of past and present, before and after forced relocation, are brought to life and examined in their historical, cultural, political and economic context by a carefully selected and articulate cast of community members.
re:Location is a Canadian anthology that, for the first time, showcases the stories of communities from a pan-Canadian perspective for a national audience. The series honours and celebrates communities that maintain and cherish a profound sense of commitment to their geographic roots, rallying heroically to rebuild and preserve what is uniquely theirs.
These are stories of migration, human endurance, adaptability, determination and resilience. They resonate with the four themes of the Gallery: Beckoning, Beginning, Becoming, and Belonging.
Episode #1: Africville.
Africville, the once vibrant, prosperous and self-sustaining community that took pride in its own church, post office, school and brightly painted houses, has now come to represent the oppression and racism faced by Black Canadians and the efforts to right historic wrongs.
The history of the African-Canadian village with origins dating back to the late 1700’s is well-documented, but in light of the Black Lives Matter protests that swept the world in the spring of 2020, there is a renewed sense of urgency to revisit Africville and document its living history.
The documentary shares the stories of former residents who witnessed the demolition of their homes in the 1960s in the name of “urban renewal”. The project highlights the community’s resilience in the face of overwhelming racism and injustice.
Africville is not a closed chapter. Its story is still being written by the people who refuse to let it be forgotten.
Episode #2: The Métis of Alberta.
In 2019, after more than 90 years of perseverance and struggle, the Métis Government Recognition and Self-Government Agreement was signed. 135 years after Louis Riel fought and died for the self-determination of the Métis, his vision has finally been realized.
In The Métis of Alberta, we meet Holden Atkinson, a young cowboy from Black Diamond, Alberta, who tells us that his forefathers were also cowboys and worked for the Hudson’s Bay Company when it was founded in the 1600’s. As we see Holden compete in rodeos, he introduces us to his mother who has been digging through the archives in search for answers about her identity, and his grandfather who shares intimate memories of growing up caught between two worlds, and personifies the historical experience of the Métis people.
It is a story told from three directions: by those who were displaced, by those who held their ground, and by a country that is only beginning to reckon with what it took from them.
Episode #3: Japanese Internment.
The story of Japanese-Canadians interned and relocated during WW2 as told through the eyes of one family, spanning four generations, who persevered and came home after more than 70 years to reclaim what was taken from them.
During the Second World War, the Canadian government detained and relocated more than 22,000 Japanese-Canadians in the name of national security. After the attack on Pearl Harbor on Dec. 7, 1941, Japanese-Canadians were stripped of their homes, businesses and livelihood and sent to internment and work camps across the BC interior and Canada. The majority of these “enemy aliens” were Canadian citizens by birth.
This program tells the story of those who were relocated through the eyes of one family, spanning four generations, who persevered and came home after more than 70 years to reclaim what was taken from them during this dark chapter of our Canadian history.
What displacement does to a family is not only what happens in the moment of removal. It is what gets passed down: the silence, the shame, and the stubborn insistence on return. This is a story about all of that. And about what it means to come home to a place that was remade without you.
Episode #4: The Lost Villages of the St. Lawrence Seaway.
The last living survivors of the thousands who were uprooted by the St. Lawrence Seaway come together to preserve the legacy of their lost villages.
The construction of the St. Lawrence Seaway began in 1954 and is recognized as one of the most monumental engineering and construction achievements in history. In the name of economic progress and nation building, over 6,500 residents were relocated from their villages as they watched their homes flooded and submerged under the great St. Lawrence River.
In a visual journey to the past and present, the last generation of these Lost Villages share their memories buried and unearthed, lost and found, and their commitment to keeping the legacy alive as they strive to build their own future.
Their act of remembrance is itself an act of migration—carrying the past forward into a future that almost forgot them.
Your Story Belongs Here Too
These four communities were moved by forces far beyond their control. But they are also proof of something the Gallery of Human Migration was built to honour: that stories outlast the displacement that creates them. Forced relocation. Internment. Flooding. Erasure. These are also migration. If any part of what you’ve watched sounds like something you know—something in your family’s history, your body, or your inheritance—then your story belongs here too. The Gallery’s Stories Collection exists for exactly this: to hold what would otherwise be lost, one account at a time.