Chapman, Mary

Websites:  No
Origin: Toronto, Ontario, 🇨🇦
Biography:

In the mid-1970s, CBC’s long-running documentary series This Land had already become a fixture of Canadian prime-time television. The program, which began in 1970 as a successor to This Land of Ours, explored the country’s natural resources, environment, and conservation issues at a moment when Canadians were beginning to see environmental stewardship as part of national identity.

To accompany its sweeping images of forests, lakes, prairies, and coastlines, CBC turned to composer Paul E. Mills to craft a theme song that would capture the vastness and warmth of the Canadian landscape. The result was This Land—a stately and melodic anthem whose lyrics praised “Canada, wondrous lady that you are” and invited listeners to “look ahead and dream… a place to watch the stars.”

The song was recorded by Mary Chapman, a Toronto vocalist who also co-hosted the series during the mid-1970s. Her delivery was gentle yet powerful, anchoring the music with sincerity and emotional clarity. In 1975 CBC issued the theme as a 45 RPM single, backed with an instrumental version arranged in three shorter movements. The single bore the catalog numbers ST 57103 (Side A) and ST 57104 (Side B), with the etched runouts matching the labels.

Though never widely distributed, the single became a treasured artifact among those who grew up watching the program. For many, Chapman’s voice at the start of each episode was inseparable from the breathtaking footage of John and Janet Foster, Tommy Tompkins, and the other contributors who brought Canada’s wilderness into living rooms across the country.

Today the This Land single stands as both a rare collectible and an enduring piece of cultural memory. More than just a theme song, it distilled the hope, pride, and natural beauty of Canada in the 1970s into a simple, memorable refrain—an unofficial anthem for a generation of viewers.
-Robert Williston