Barkskins

[Artie Peltier]

National Geographic Channel is putting out an 8 part mini series called Barkskins, on 4 consecutive Monday nights with two episodes each night. The first two started last night but can still be watched. Sorry for this late post.
The series is about the early French settlers who traveled from France to New France, (Canada) in 1690 to trap, harvest trees and start colonies along the Saint Lawrence River. Of particular interest to me is that through Ancestry I was able to trace my family back to time period and I am interested to see how the series follows the true facts of my family’s history. Hopefully it will be somewhat historically correct. Art

 

[ppg1949]

AP, I watched it and while I’m not an expert, it appears to be historically correct. It is fascinating to watch and even more so if you are watching family history as you are.

 

[nhmoose]

Recording on the Directv thingy

 

[Artie Peltier]

AP, I watched it and while I’m not an expert, it appears to be historically correct. It is fascinating to watch and even more so if you are watching family history as you are.

My 8th. Great Grandfather was Guilaume Pelletier, 5/11/1598 to 11/27/1657. The last name is spelled differently, with the spelling being changed to Peltier later on. Along with his wife, son and brother, they left France and arrived in New France on 9/12/1644, where they spent 3 years working as Indentured servants. His family along with 60 others were the first to go there. I’m thinking the settlement we see in the series was build by him and the rest of the first 60. The family was freed on 9/12/1644, where they were given land along the Saint Lawrence River. He live there until his death on 11/27/1657, so the series takes place some 30 years after his death. I wonder how hard it was being the first ones there. He is recognized as one of the first founders of Quebec, and there are many memorials to his name. as soon as this virus clears I want to go there to visit his grave and tour the area. Art

 

[NW Territory Woodsman]

Saw it last night, it was interesting.

NWT Woodsman

 

[ppg1949]

Art, that is a most interesting family history. Thanks for sharing.

 

[Tobie]

Being brutally honest- it looked a lot like a frontier soap opera, and not a very good one at that.

 

[Notchy Bob]

I don't own a television, so missed this one. It sounds like it might be interesting. I know Annie Proulx published a novel entitled Barkskins in 2016. You can read a preview on Google Books: Barkskins Preview

NPR did a review of it shortly after publication: Barkskins Book Review

I have not read the book. Annie Proulx has a reputation for doing very good research on the subject matter of her novels, but this one was described as an "environmental saga," covering a timeframe of 300 years. I read a very short excerpt... somewhere... But it just didn't grab me so I did not read the whole book. Maybe if they had kept the story back in colonial times, but those sweeping, multi-century sagas in general don't appeal to me.

I don't know if this National Geographic production is based on the book or not. I wouldn't be surprised if it is.

I'll be counting on you guys to give us a review of the movie version. I might try to find some way to view it if it's good.

Notchy Bob

 

[sussexmuzllodr]

A program that could be interpreted as Historically correct with a touch of surrealism mixed in....

SM

 

[smoothshooter]

National Geographic Channel is putting out an 8 part mini series called Barkskins, on 4 consecutive Monday nights with two episodes each night. The first two started last night but can still be watched. Sorry for this late post.
The series is about the early French settlers who traveled from France to New France, (Canada) in 1690 to trap, harvest trees and start colonies along the Saint Lawrence River. Of particular interest to me is that through Ancestry I was able to trace my family back to time period and I am interested to see how the series follows the true facts of my family’s history. Hopefully it will be somewhat historically correct. Art

I thought it was very well done, and found the weapons, clothing, and living conditions to be historically correct, at least to the best of my knowledge.
Can’t wait for the next installments.
The jury is still out as to whether it turns into another Lefty politically-correct indoctrination attempt ( white man bad, native Americans good ).
Have seen little to none of that so far.

 

[rickpa]

Yes, it is based on Annie Proulx's book according to the advertising blurb I saw.

 

[Belleville]

Watched it Monday night and was disappointed. Little narrative, so you don't know what's happening. Am hard of hearing so miss the hints on the plot. There are a lot of dark scenes, beards, poor accents, and poor attempts to sing French songs which does not help. The audio does not come thru well on my cable. These short comings may be all be due to my hearing loss? They did not leave the captions (what few there were) up long enough to finish reading them. There was one scene that was for PC and added nothing to the plot. Camera moves quickly and am unable to concentrate on the arms. From what little I could pick up, the arms do not seem all that great. The newly arrived from France have extraordinary knowledge of Canada. My wife gave up half way thru and went to bed. Don't get me wrong as I hope to continue to watch it. Just thought it should have come thru to me to where I might enjoy it more,

After watching it, switch channels to watch first episodes of Grant. Why do they have to put two good show on at the same time? Grant was must better even with the beards. There was narrative, and the audio came thru much better. Different channel, different accent? After all that TV to 1 am, taking the dog out and getting ready to go to bed, made for a very short night. Hope to watch all episodes of both shows. Grant runs for 3 nights in a row making it easier to follow. And my education covered US history with very little on Canada. But have done pretty well to fill in the Canadian history.

Just my take!

 

[looney]

Watched it Monday night and was disappointed. Little narrative, so you don't know what's happening. Am hard of hearing so miss the hints on the plot. There are a lot of dark scenes, beards, poor accents, and poor attempts to sing French songs which does not help. The audio does not come thru well on my cable. These short comings may be all be due to my hearing loss? They did not leave the captions (what few there were) up long enough to finish reading them. There was one scene that was for PC and added nothing to the plot. Camera moves quickly and am unable to concentrate on the arms. From what little I could pick up, the arms do not seem all that great. The newly arrived from France have extraordinary knowledge of Canada. My wife gave up half way thru and went to bed. Don't get me wrong as I hope to continue to watch it. Just thought it should have come thru to me to where I might enjoy it more,

After watching it, switch channels to watch first episodes of Grant. Why do they have to put two good show on at the same time? Grant was must better even with the beards. There was narrative, and the audio came thru much better. Different channel, different accent? After all that TV to 1 am, taking the dog out and getting ready to go to bed, made for a very short night. Hope to watch all episodes of both shows. Grant runs for 3 nights in a row making it easier to follow. And my education covered US history with very little on Canada. But have done pretty well to fill in the Canadian history.

Just my take!

What's wrong with beards?

 

[Belleville]

"looney What's wrong with beards?" Makes it difficult to read lips. Be glad that you did not know that and I hope that you never need to know.

 

[Rató:rats]

I read the book and it was ok. Haven’t caught the show yet. I hope they show the logging being done in winter. Here in Canada all logging was a winter activity when work was slow on the farms. No Mosquitos or black flies. Trails would be packed on top of snow so the logs could be dragged out by horse from terrain that would be impossible in summer with blowdowns and muskeg. Here in Ontario you can still see white pine stumps that are 10 ft tall and people wonder how they got up there to cut ‘em. Well it’s because when they cut them down they were standing on 6 feet of snow.

 

[Artie Peltier]

Watched it Monday night and was disappointed. Little narrative, so you don't know what's happening. Am hard of hearing so miss the hints on the plot. There are a lot of dark scenes, beards, poor accents, and poor attempts to sing French songs which does not help. The audio does not come thru well on my cable. These short comings may be all be due to my hearing loss? They did not leave the captions (what few there were) up long enough to finish reading them. There was one scene that was for PC and added nothing to the plot. Camera moves quickly and am unable to concentrate on the arms. From what little I could pick up, the arms do not seem all that great. The newly arrived from France have extraordinary knowledge of Canada. My wife gave up half way thru and went to bed. Don't get me wrong as I hope to continue to watch it. Just thought it should have come thru to me to where I might enjoy it more,

After watching it, switch channels to watch first episodes of Grant. Why do they have to put two good show on at the same time? Grant was must better even with the beards. There was narrative, and the audio came thru much better. Different channel, different accent? After all that TV to 1 am, taking the dog out and getting ready to go to bed, made for a very short night. Hope to watch all episodes of both shows. Grant runs for 3 nights in a row making it easier to follow. And my education covered US history with very little on Canada. But have done pretty well to fill in the Canadian history.

Just my take!

In reference about the new settlers knowing a lot about Canada. The original setters arrived in 1641. My 8th Great grandfather was in this first founding group. I posted a short history of them in this post if you care to read it. The first group is most likely responsible for building the settlement and obtaining a lot of information depicted in the series, as the timeline is 1690. Art

 

[nhmoose]

Direct TV Recording both on the DVR.

Seen the Barkskins not bad. I will continue watching. When you expect absolute correct from any TV show you are going to be bitterly disappointed every time. It is for entertainment not for juried perfect event.

And for the I don't have/watch TV good for you.

 

[Notchy Bob]

Yes, it is based on Annie Proulx's book according to the advertising blurb I saw.

I re-read the preview of the book, and this time it did pique my interest. My wife loaned me her iPad with the Kindle application and got the eBook for me... what a gal! I'm about 80 pages into it and pretty well hooked. Proulx spins a good yarn, although she has a tendency to discard her characters rather abruptly when she is through with them. The first chapters devoted about 70 pages to one central character, and then described his death in about five lines! Other characters got similar treatment. There's not much about guns, so far. Proulx briefly indicated the people who had them carried mostly Charlevilles, with no mention (yet) of trade guns or fusils.

I think the book covers around 300 years, and it'll probably lose me after the mid-19th century. I'll be interested in hearing if the Nat Geo production covers the same breadth of time, or stays in the 17th-18th centuries.

Notchy Bob

 

[Dave Marsh]

Artie, thanks for posting. I watched the first 2 episodes and found them enjoyable and interesting. We have my wife's family tree and several of her ancestors were born in France in the early 1600's and died in Montreal in the late 1600's. Don't really know much more about them but just knowing her family was in that environment at that time as well makes it even more interesting. Going to have to get the book. There are many name spellings in her family but Paille is one which ended up as Paya when they moved to Vermont in the mid 1700's.....All makes for great viewing and reading.

Dave

 

[reskite]

I started watching the TV series and thought it interesting, so I checked out the audiobook from my library. Right off the bat, the series plot is so divergent from the audiobook, they are hardly related.

In the book, the death of Monsieur Trepagny at the hands of Iroquois women is inventively gruesome.