The Dinosaur Hunter

In the early 1930s, southwestern Canada is groaning under the Depression. Two strangers show up in town, one a government official, the other an adventurer, and promise the astonished farmers $500 and $1,000, respectively, for every complete dinosaur skeleton found on their apparently predestined land. Little Julia and her brother are immediately hooked, but the good Christians in the village, including Julia's mother, resist the brash intrusion of modernity into the pious worldview. A cheerful family melodrama, a memoir of youth, based on a literary novel, set with a light hand in a richly detailed scene for Canadian television. The plot centers on a three-part contest: 1. between the farmers for the money, 2. between the adventurers for the skeleton, and 3. between scientists and creationists for interpretive sovereignty.