Line #81 Main/CanadianWestern


1	%%%
2	%%
3	%%
4	%% This list of examples has been alphabetized. Please add your example in the proper place. Thanks!
5	%%
6	%%
7	%%%
8
9	[[quoteright:261:[[Film/TheMountie https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/themountie_1227.jpg]]]]
10	[[caption-width-right:261:[[Film/AFistfulOfDollars A Fistful of Loonies]]]]
11
12	The Canadian Western, or "Northern" as it is properly called,[[note]]sometimes known as a "Northwestern", as they are often set in western or northwestern Canada[[/note]] is TheWestern [-[[JustForFun/RecycledInSPACE IN CANADA!]]-], with a few characteristic differences. There tends to be more snow in Canada and Alaska, the other setting for the Northern, than in the western United States. As such, instead of the deserts and rock formations of the American Southwest, the iconic imagery associated with the Canadian Western is that of snow-covered boreal forests and mountain peaks under a WintryAuroralSky.
13
14	Furthermore, there's the [[UsefulNotes/TheMounties Royal Canadian Mounted Police]], always dressed in the famous Red Serge uniform, who [[AlwaysGetsHisMan always get their man]] (or so they're supposed to do). If it doesn't have Mounties, [[MooseAndMapleSyrup it's not a Canadian Western.]] In a way, the Mountie represents a transition phase in the idea of the frontier lawman: he's often isolated out in the field, but unlike TheSheriff, he is part of a larger formal organization with the central headquarters located all the way back in Canada's urban national capital of Ottawa, Ontario, and will occasionally make the trip there on administrative business and vice versa. Therefore, the Mountie represents a key difference between the Canadian Northern and the American Western: it is ''not'' a lawless wilderness with occasional pockets of civilization. There is, already, an overarching system keeping order. That's the mythology, anyway. But what happens when that system breaks down? What happens [[TheCavalryArrivesLate before]] the Mounties can [[TheCavalry show up]]? What happens when you're on the wrong side of their system? That's what these stories explore.
15
16	In reality, while they are a common staple, ''not'' every Northern has a Mountie as the central character, with examples being ''Literature/WhiteFang'' and the 2016 film ''Searchers.''
17
18	Another common feature is the RemittanceMan. Depending when it's set, this may also be the natural environment of the {{Prospector}} driving his SledDogsThroughTheSnow (who may be {{heroic dog}}s in their own right), as western Canada had two [[GoldFever Gold Rushes]] in the 19th century - one in British Columbia in 1858, and another further north in the Yukon Territory, in 1898. This latter is considered the last of the major Gold Rushes.
19
20	If it overlaps with the WeirdWest, expect to see the environment portrayed as GrimUpNorth, where EvilIsDeathlyCold and PolarMadness is an ever-present threat.
21
22	Despite popular belief, the Northern is not a DeadHorseTrope. It is still going strong with series such as ''Series/WhenCallsTheHeart'' and films such as ''Film/TheMountie'' keeping the genre alive.
23
24	Compare NordicNoir, another traditionally-American genre transposed into a more northerly climate.
25	----
26	!!Examples:
27
28	[[foldercontrol]]
29
30	[[folder:Advertising]]
31	* A Canadian Heritage Minute about [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r00yaFwZ5bc Superintendent Sam Steele,]] head of the Yukon detachment of the North West Mounted Police who kept the peace during the Klondike Gold Rush, is meant to illustrate the difference between the American [[TheWildWest Wild West]] and the Canadian West. An American frontiersman (played by Creator/DonSDavis) crosses the border with gambling gear and a pair of revolvers, hoping to make a quick buck, but he gets caught at the border by Steele and his officers and is sent right back into Alaska. Steele doesn't even have to draw his own gun, and is [[TheStoic barely fazed when the American draws his]].
32	-->Men don't wear pistols in Canada.
33	[[/folder]]
34
35	[[folder:Comic Books]]
36	* ''ComicBook/JonahHex2005'', an issue of the series finds Jonah Hex in the Northwest Territories tracking down a bounty and running afoul of some Mounties who don't take kindly to an American BountyHunter roaming their country.
37	* ''ComicBook/LuckyLuke'' has "Les Daltons dans le blizzard", where they flee to Canada. Contains this immortal line by Joe on seeing a Mountie[[note]]because it means they've crossed the border where Luke (in theory) can't catch them[[/note]]:
38	-->"Hooray, a policeman!"
39	* Much of ''ComicBook/TheLifeAndTimesOfScroogeMcDuck'' is set in the Yukon, with Superintendent Steele of the RCMP making a memorable appearance by attempting to arrest Scrooge.
40	[[/folder]]
41
42	[[folder:Comic Strips]]
43	* ''Comicstrip/KingOfTheRoyalMounted'' Lead character is a Mountie who always catches his man.
44	[[/folder]]
45
46	[[folder:Films -- Animation]]
47	* ''WesternAnimation/{{Balto}}'' is set in Alaska, making it an Alaskan example of a Northern, and centers around the 1925 serum run to Nome. Animals are a common feature in Northerns and dogs and dog sleds were popularized by Jack London with both playing a major role in this one.
48	* The UsefulNotes/AcademyAward-nominated animated short ''WesternAnimation/WildLifeOrUneVieSauvage'' is about an English RemittanceMan who goes out to Alberta to become a rancher in the year 1909. It is subtitled "A Western" and the main character's [[spoiler:body is found]] by a Mountie.
49	[[/folder]]
50
51	[[folder:Films -- Live-Action]]
52	* ''Film/DeathHunt'' with Creator/CharlesBronson and Creator/LeeMarvin is loosely based on the real-life manhunt for Albert Johnson in the Yukon Territory in 1931.
53	* ''Film/GingerSnapsBackTheBeginning'', a prequel to the first two ''Film/GingerSnaps'' films, is set at a nineteenth-century Canadian fur-trapping community being besieged by werewolves.
54	* ''Film/TheGreyFox'', based on the true story of Bill Miner, an American stagecoach robber who staged Canada's first train robbery.
55	* ''Film/FortVengeance'' (1953), two Americans from Montana join the North-West Mounted Police and receive their first assignment: prevent Sitting Bull from forging a pact with the Blackfoot nation.
56	* ''Film/{{Gunless}}'' (2010), a DeconstructiveParody in which a fugitive American {{Gunslinger}} (Paul Gross, ''Series/DueSouth'''s Constable Fraser) arrives in a Canadian town and is bewildered to find that nobody owns a firearm. (Handguns were mostly illegal in western Canada at the time.)
57	* ''Film/TheMountie'' (2011), a lone officer imposes law and order on a Yukon outpost ruled by Latvian gangsters. ItMakesSenseInContext.
58	* The Gary Cooper movie ''Film/NorthWestMountedPolice''.
59	* The post-apocalyptic Western, ''Film/SixReasonsWhy'' takes place in a future Canada's desert landscape.
60	* ''Film/{{Togo}}'', based on the same event as Balto.
61	* ''Film/WhereTheNorthBegins'', the first movie to feature Rin Tin Tin in a starring role, takes place in the snowy Canadian wilderness with a French-Canadian fur trapper as the human lead.
62	[[/folder]]
63
64	[[folder:Literature]]
65	* Two noteworthy stories of the Northern genre are ''Literature/TheCallOfTheWild'' and ''Literature/WhiteFang'' by Creator/JackLondon, the former story even being set during one of the five most notable historical events to focus a Northern around: the Klondike Gold Rush. Another common feature of the Northern are animals with these two stories having been the one responsible for popularizing dogs and by extension dog sleds for the genre.
66	* ''Literature/BlackTideRising'': CombatPragmatist Cat Cavanaugh, SergeantRock Jim Kolar, and GeniusBruiser BadassNative Rob George from the short story "Chase the Sunset" liberate trapped residents of the Canadian prairies from the threat of lingering zombies and a serial rapist.
67	* Robert Service's NarrativePoem "The Cremation of Sam [=McGee=]" combines this with the WeirdWest. It's a ghost story about a {{prospector}} who freezes to death, and his friend who promises to [[BuryMeNotOnTheLonePrairie cremate his remains]]. The opening stanza is a masterpiece of eerie Yukon atmosphere:
68	-->There are strange things done in the midnight sun\
69	By the men who moil for gold;\
70	The Arctic trails have their secret tales\
71	That would make your blood run cold\
72	[[WintryAuroralSky The Northern Lights have seen queer sights]]\
73	But the queerest they ever did see\
74	Was the night of the marge of Lake Lebarge\
75	I cremated Sam [=McGee=]
76	* Many of the crime/horror novels by Creator/MichaelSlade have elements of the Canadian Western. They feature a Mountie crime-fighting unit (''Literature/SpecialX''), discuss the history of the Mounties' patrols in the Canadian West and the Yukon, and include many other elements of the Western.
77	* The short story ''Literature/TheMonsterOfPartridgeCreek'' also combines the Canadian Western with the WeirdWest, with a ''[[LivingDinosaurs Ceratosaurus]]'' roaming the Yukon.
78	* "The Thing That Walked On The Wind", a Franchise/CthulhuMythos short story by Creator/AugustDerleth, has a Mountie in northern Canada running afoul of sinister {{cult}} practices among the [[TheSavageIndian native people]] in his jurisdiction. Like a lot of frontier literature, it's [[ValuesDissonance quite racist]].
79	[[/folder]]
80
81	[[folder:Live-Action TV]]
82	* The Canadian TV series, ''The Series/{{Beachcombers}}'', is technically a Western in the sense that it is placed around the real town of Gibsons, British Columbia, Canada's westernmost province. The regular character, Const. John Constable is a Mountie of a more realistic kind: he wears a standard regular duty uniform, only wears his Red Serge dress uniform on special occasions, and doesn't ride a horse on duty and instead uses a standard police cruiser and patrol yacht on the water.
83	* The Canadian TV series ''Series/{{Bordertown\|1989}}'' is set in a town that straddles the US/Canadian border somewhere in Saskatchewan. The border goes through the middle of the law enforcement office, with a straitlaced corporal in the Northwest Mounted Police having his desk on the north side, and a rough-and-ready U.S. Marshal having his on the south side.
84	* ''Series/DueSouth'' is this for part of the pilot, before Fraser ends up in Chicago.
85	* ''Series/WhenCallsTheHeart'' is set in a town in the Canadian northwest (likely Alberta). Mounties, coal miners, outlaws, and schoolmarms drive the show's many plots.
86	* ''Series/MurdochMysteries'' sometimes takes the lead character out of the city:
87	** In "Anything You Can Do...", Murdoch travels to rural British Columbia while tracking down a murderer with a North West Mounted Police officer [[spoiler:(who turns out to be his half-brother.)]]
88	** "Murdoch of the Klondike" has Murdoch take a leave of absence to become a prospector in the Canadian Gold Rush, inevitably [[BusmansHoliday finding a murder]] and working with Sam Steele of the NWMP.
89	[[/folder]]
90
91	[[folder:Radio]]
92	* ''Radio/{{The Challenge of the Yukon}}'', dealing with the adventures of RCMP Sergeant Preston and his sled dog/ally Yukon King. Also a TV series in the 1950s.
93	[[/folder]]
94
95	[[folder:Tabletop Games]]
96	* ''The Great Weird North'' is the Canadian sourcebook for ''TabletopGame/{{Deadlands}}'', expanding the WeirdWest setting into Canada and allowing [=PCs=] to be Mounties, trappers and other typically Canadian archetypes.
97	[[/folder]]
98
99	%%[[folder: Theatre ]]%%
100	%%* The musical ''Theatre/RoseMarie''. There are three film versions, all including considerable changes.%%ZCE
101	%%[[/folder]]
102
103	[[folder: Video Games]]
104	* ''VideoGame/TheYukonTrail'', a game from the same developers as the better-known ''[[VideoGame/TheOregonTrail Oregon Trail]]'', has the player in the role of {{prospector}} during the Klondike Gold Rush.
105	* ''VideoGame/Sly2BandOfThieves'' has a couple of levels that take part in Canada, and feature an ambient Western guitar tune. The villain of the chapter is also an actual lumber baron from the 19th century.
106	[[/folder]]
107
108	[[folder: Western Animation ]]
109	* ''WesternAnimation/DuckTales2017'' ventures into this genre with the episode "The Golden Lagoon of White Agony Plains!", with flashbacks to Scrooge in what appears to be the Gold Rush-era Yukon, as a MythologyGag reference to ''ComicBook/TheLifeAndTimesOfScroogeMcDuck''. He runs into a living mammoth and [[BearyFriendly befriends a grizzly]], all in search of a lake of liquid gold.
110	* The parody ''WesternAnimation/DudleyDoRight'' is better known than most straight examples of the genre.
111	* Parodied in ''WesternAnimation/TheRenAndStimpyShow'' with "The Royal Canadian Kilted Yaksmen."
112	[[/folder]]

Context Main / CanadianWestern