Feisty Canadian web series spotlights female trailblazers

Paloma Nuñez, left, Joelle Peters, Kat Barrell, and Ishan Davé in Pioneer Girl, which showrunner Davida Aronovitch based loosely on her experience helping to create Canadian Heritage Minutes. Photo by Shaftesbury

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The new web series Pioneer Girl isn’t your grandma’s history lesson. But maybe it should’ve been. The six-episode comedy is a feisty take on Canadian history that highlights the often-overlooked contributions that women have made to our fair land.

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Righteous indignation takes the form of feminist history PhD student Eleanor, played by Kat Barrell of the sci-fi series Wynonna Earp. After lighting her professor’s car on fire because he stole her research for his book, Eleanor’s kicked out of school and forced to work at a open-air heritage museum — a.k.a. pioneer village — that recreates life in 1867.

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Six episodes of about seven minutes each debuted May 13 on the YouTube channel KindaTV. Paloma Nuñez plays Eleanor’s manager, while Ishan Davé and Joelle Peters are on board as staffers Matthew and Sam, respectively. The show’s creator and head writer is Davida Aronovitch, who was a writer-producer for Historica Canada’s Heritage Minutes series from 2012 to 2021.

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“Pioneer Girl is loosely based on my experience working in history on Heritage Minutes and other public history projects that share Canadian stories,” says Aronovitch. “I’ve come across so many incredible but lesser-known stories, particularly about women, that deserve to be told. I wanted to find a platform to share these stories and shift narrative away from the history we are always told in textbooks.”

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Filmed in Toronto at The Village at Black Creek, the show introduces the fictional Olden Days Times Pioneer Village as a struggling establishment. It has to boost revenue or risk going the way of the mimeograph.

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In her first days at the village, Eleanor darns socks, wears a bonnet, sweeps animal waste and does a butter-churning demonstration for kids. During the latter, she tells the story of how Lucy Maud Montgomery’s publishers stole the rights and profits for Anne of Green Gables, and how Montgomery spent years in legal battles to get them back.

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Eleanor also starts a semi-flirtation with back-to-the-earth guy Matthew and rubs gift shop employee Sam the wrong way. She’s the type of woman who wears corsets with Converse and who busts preconceptions about princesses while operating a spinning wheel.

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“The setting opens up an opportunity for satirical and social commentary on how people feel in a workplace environment and how conversations evolve against a change-resistant backdrop,” says Aronovitch.

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Pioneer Girl comes at a time when television and other media are re-examining our relationships to history, cultural mythologies and gender roles.

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The Testaments, the dystopian sequel series to The Handmaid’s Tale, debuted last month on Disney+. Taylor Sheridan’s neo-western Yellowstone franchise dominates Paramount+, with Marshals landing on screens a few months ago and Dutton Ranch on tap for May 15. And, now in its fourth season, Shonda Rhimes’ steamy Netflix series Bridgerton continues to craft a more inclusive take on the Regency era.

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“How we talk about history has changed a lot. In a great way,” says Aronovitch. “But the present is feeling heavy. The world can feel like an impossibly complex and bleak place right now.

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“Above all, we hope that people will laugh. And that the series inspires people — especially women — to keep talking and trying, as we all work to navigate important conversations that help us learn and grow.”

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