GLIMPSES of how Canada worked: a writer's memoir.

62. Another World's Fair in Canada

ROGER'S FIRST ASSIGNMENT FOR ME was to send TV stations and newspapers across the country a dozen coloured photos of Canadian National's newest rolling stock. In its library I identified 150 media, culled the best pix the photography studio had, ordered 155 sets of 8 X 10 prints. Our French soul, Bernard Legaré, translated captions, the printing shop printed. Red three-ring binders with plastic sleeves came from CN's stationery supplier. After everything was assembled by Mireille, the secretary supporting Roger and me, the mail room picked it up and sent it.

All that took only five working days. 

The 150 Canadian media were a start on promoting CN's input to Expo 86. I added 250 addresses in other countries. The fair's overall theme was "Transportation and Communications". CN focused on "Carrying Things" by various means.

The railway's $10 million paid for many private initiatives. Some creators (e.g. architects, fashion designers) wanted total secrecy except from CN's assistant vice president for Expo 86 (avp86), who arranged their funding. He knew little about each, had no written proposals or reports to show me, so I had to phone principals all over the country. Most treated me as if I were a nosy competitor. They wanted avp86 to assure them I was legitimate. He ignored my suggestion that he introduce me to them somehow, slowing my work.

My first press kit went out in late 1985. The fourth, issued just after the fair opened on May 2 of '86, contained a fact sheet and eight articles. They were entitled The CN pavilion, CN pavilion commissioner, CN pavilion staff uniforms, Transitions in IMAX 3D, Motion exhibits, Interactive videos operate motion figures, Time-line, and Rolling billboards.

The "motion figures" were 10-metre-high interactive gadgets with multiple controls; they demonstrated the laws of motion. Newton's Laws of Motion according to CN's exhibit were uniform, circular, accelerating, oscillatory. Four! Googling "Newton's Laws of Motion" in 2016, I found only three: Inertia, acceleration, action-reaction.

The "billboards" were a locomotive, four box cars and an intermodal semi-trailer used in regular service but decorated in Expo 86's brilliant colours.

Preparing the press kit required comprehending a fabulous range of technical details.Transitions, which introduced two-camera IMAX technology to the world, was the most complex:

"The 20-minute film sketches the history and future of how goods and messages are moved about, with scenes ranging from voyageurs in birchbark canoes to the high technology of satellite communications.

"With the stunning true-to-life 3D effect achieved by a 'double camera' designed by cinematographer Ernest McNabb of the National Film Board, and built by Imax Systems Corporation of Canada, Transitions begins with an autumn lakeside scene from which a branch of golden leaves extends right into the audience -- there are gasps, hands reach out to touch them. The Fraser Canyon segment shows a CN freight locomotive advancing into the 500-seat theatre, then gives the audience a track-level view of magnificent surroundings.

"The double camera has two 70-mm lenses related to a 50/50 mirror in such a way that one records through it while the other receives a reflected image, their perspectives separated like those of human eyes. To align the images into a single three-dimensional one, the CN IMAX 3D Theatre supplies polarizing glasses....

"A four-man crew operated the train; it took 10 to maintain, direct, and run the unique camera."

I wrote that after the first screening of Transitions on March 17, 1986, an unforgettable St. Patrick's Day morning. As a couple of men crossed paths outside my cubicle, one asked the other if he was "going up to see Transitions". I'd heard there would be a screening at the National Film Board (NFB), but not when.