BY HEIDI
ULRICHSEN
Fans of classic Canadian television can meet some of their
favourite stars Aug. 11-13 at the Adventures in Rainbow Country
Cast and Crew Reunion in Whitefish Falls.
The show, which aired on CBC Television in 1970-71, was shot in
and around Whitefish Falls and the Whitefish River First Nation
in 1969. The two communities are located just off of Highway 6,
approximately an hour away from Greater Sudbury.
 
 About 10 cast and crew members have confirmed their
attendance, including Buckley Petawabano, who played Pete Gawa,
Lois Maxwell, who played Nancy Williams, and John Sadowski, who
played OPP Officer Nixon.
Maxwell is better known for playing Miss Moneypenny in
several James Bond movies.
The show is about teen Billy Williams (Stephen Cottier) and
his younger sister Hannah (Susan Conway) who live with their
mother, Nancy (Maxwell) at a hunting and fishing lodge in the
fictional Georgian Bay community of Rainbow Country.
The lodge was built by Billy's father Frank, who disappeared
two years earlier when his bush plane went down while he was
prospecting for gold. Billy is accomplished at many outdoor
activities. His best friend is Pete Gawa (Petawabano), a native
boy. The friends have many adventures together.
Fans are invited to all of the reunion events. The
registration and welcome reception take place Friday from 7 to
9 pm at the Rainbow Country Recreation Hall in Whitefish Falls.
A community barbecue will be held on the recreation hall
grounds Saturday from 12 to 5 pm.
Also on Saturday, there will be a reunion banquet at the Red
Dog Grill in Whitefish Falls from 6 to 9 pm. Tickets are $30 in
advance and $35 at the door. That evening, there will be a
bonfire at Forbes Holiday Resort from 9:30 pm until the fire
goes out.
On Sunday there will be an excursion to Dreamer's Rock on
the Whitefish River First Nation. Dreamer's Rock is a sacred
place where native people go to meditate and determine their
place in life. Tickets cost $15 a person in advance and $20 per
person on site, subject to availability.
A fan of the show, Denis Belton, decided to organize a
reunion after a chance meeting with the show's director of
photography, Harry Makin.
"We struck up a friendship, and have been in touch ever
since, and started talking about having a reunion. I
volunteered to work on the organization."
Belton didn't watch the show during its first run, but
became a fan after seeing it in re-runs around 1975. He liked
the show because it featured a lot of outdoor activities.
"It twigged with me because I remember being on a canoe trip
in that very area, and remembering how beautiful it was. That's
why the show kind of a had a resonance with me at first,
because that was the kind of stuff I like doing - the canoing
and the hiking."
Adventures in Rainbow Country only ran for one season
because there was creative differences between the CBC and the
production company hired to film the show. The broadcaster put
their resources into another show, The Beachcombers, instead.
"Some say that The Beachcombers was just about a ripoff of
Adventures in Rainbow Country, the only difference being the
area it was shot in - the West Coast as opposed to Northern
Ontario," says Belton.
Makin has fond memories of filming Adventures in Rainbow
Country. He especially liked being out in the fresh air and
working with the young people on the show.
Back in 1969, Makin was a camera operator at the CBC in
Toronto. He left his job and moved his family to Espanola for a
year to film the show.
He and his wife recently sold their home in Prince Edward
County and are now living in Whitefish Falls.
"My favourite episode was 'The Tower.' The kids got up into
a fire observers' tower, and then the girl was afraid to come
out, so they had to help her out," he says.
"We used the real (fire) tower, which was up high, but to
film the action, we built the inside of the tower 10 feet off
the ground."
For more information about the reunion, phone Belton at (416) 782-4842, by e-mail at [email protected] or go to home.ca.inter.net/~deniswb/rainbow. Information about the show is available at www.angelfire.com/tv2/rainbowcountry .
