Film explores tiny Yukon land rush created by Quaker Oats

Last Updated: Friday, July 20, 2007 | 4:49 PM ET

CBC Arts

Canadian filmmaker David McDonald goes in search of the seven square inches of land in the Yukon he believes he has held since he was six years old in the new documentary Cereal Thriller.

The Ottawa-based filmmaker, 60, got a "deed" to the land during the 1950s, after writing in to a promotion run by the Quaker Oats-sponsored radio program Sergeant Preston of the Yukon.

In his documentary, scheduled to air on History Television at 8 p.m. ET Friday, McDonald sets out to track down others who also received the deeds — and to find out what happened to his small patch of the North.

"They were a big deal for me," McDonald told CBC News. "There was nothing else that would get me to eat bowl after bowl of puffed rice or wheat."

McDonald said he managed to unearth many other deed-holders after writing an article about the deeds in the Ottawa Citizen newspaper.

"It's a vivid memory for [these people]," said McDonald. "It implied that maybe some day you could go up there and find your land and maybe a gold nugget."

McDonald said one of the deed-holders he tracked down was the film critic for the ABC news program Good Morning America, Joel Siegel, who recently died from cancer.

"He had it framed on his wall. It was important to him. It was a symbol for him and other people of their childhood."

Many had high hopes for their tiny plots of land. One Michigan man wanted to establish the world's smallest national park while a group of friends wanted to pool their plots and declare an independent republic.

Eventually, McDonald headed north to locate his land. 

He discovered that the company Quaker Oats set up to manage the land never paid property taxes, so the Yukon government reclaimed it all.

"They never told us that perhaps we should have registered the deed."