Rosies of the North is a 46-minute Canadian documentary film made in 1999 by the National Film Board of Canada (NFB) and directed by Kelly Saxberg. The film recounts the story of the women at the Canadian Car and Foundry in Fort William, Ontario, who built fighter and bomber aircraft needed for the war effort in the Second World War. It also is the story of female engineer Elsie MacGill, who became known as the "Queen of the Hurricanes". The title of the film is an allusion to the wartime iconic image of Rosie the Riveter.
Theatrical poster
Engineer Elsie MacGill
Canadian Car and Foundry (CC&F), also variously known as "Canadian Car & Foundry" or more familiarly as "Can Car", was a manufacturer of buses, railway rolling stock, forestry equipment, and later aircraft for the Canadian market. CC&F history goes back to 1897, but the main company was established in 1909 from an amalgamation of several companies and later became part of Hawker Siddeley Canada through the purchase by A.V. Roe Canada in 1957. Today the remaining factories are part of Alstom after its acquisition of Bombardier Transportation completed in 2021.
Preserved 1954 CCF-Brill trolley bus on the Edmonton trolley bus system.
Portable power plant built by Canadian Car and Foundry
Navarin-class minesweepers
CC&F Hawker Hurricane X on a test flight over Fort William, Ontario