Editor: Spacing is pleased to continue our partnership with the National Film Board of Canada to showcase films and interactive projects from their online screening room. Julie Matlin of the NFB will be occasionally posting films here on Spacing that explore public spaces, Canadian or international cities and anything urban. The NFB is one of Canada’s greatest resources. Click here to view their entire online collection.
Welcome to Pine Point is an interactive project about a Northern mining town that simply vanished from the map. Using a combination of text, photographs and a killer score by the Besnard Lakes, this “digital scrapbook” tells the story of how a small town can disappear, leaving all the inhabitants, places and memories frozen in time.
The case of Pine Point is unique. While there have been other failed Canadian towns, this one thrived for an entire generation and was then flattened… physically removed. As the creators point out, Pine Point enjoyed no organic growth, instead, it was Economics 101:
“If you mounted a social experiment on The Creation of Hometown Memories, it would probably look something like the town of Pine Point; isolated in an unforgiving landscape, and built with a singular purpose.”
Welcome to Pine Point is the brainchild of Michael Simons and Paul Shoebridge, collectively known as The Goggles. You can learn more about them here.
Take the interactive tour of Pine Point here.