A Gift to Last is a CBC Television

CBC Television

CBC Television is a Canadian television network owned by the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, the national public broadcaster.Although the CBC is supported by public funding, the television network supplements this funding with commercial advertising revenue, in contrast to CBC Radio which are...

 Christmas special broadcast in 1976, a subsequent family drama series that ran from 1978-1979, and a stage play based on the pilot episode.

In both the special and series, Gordon Pinsent

Gordon Pinsent

Gordon Edward Pinsent, CC, FRSC is a Canadian television, theatre and film actor.-Early life:Pinsent, the youngest of six children, was born in Grand Falls, Newfoundland, the son of Flossie ; originally from Clifton, Newfoundland, and Stephen Arthur Pinsent, a papermill worker and cobbler;...

 portrayed North West Mounted Police

Royal Canadian Mounted Police

The Royal Canadian Mounted Police , literally ‘Royal Gendarmerie of Canada’; colloquially known as The Mounties, and internally as ‘The Force’) is the national police force of Canada, and one of the most recognized of its kind in the world. It is unique in the world as a national, federal,...

 officer Sgt Edgar Sturgess.

Christmas Special

Melvyn Douglas

Melvyn Douglas

Melvyn Edouard Hesselberg , better known as Melvyn Douglas, was an American actor.Coming to prominence in the 1930s as a suave leading man , Douglas later transitioned into more mature and fatherly roles as in his Academy Award-winning performances in Hud...

 was cast as the senior Clement Sturgess, a nephew of Sgt Edgar Sturgess. The special dramatises Clement's Christmas memories of his life around the year 1900. Mark Polley, the brother of Sarah Polley

Sarah Polley

Sarah Polley is a Canadian actress, singer, film director, and screenwriter. Polley first attained notice in her role as Sara Stanley in the Canadian television series, Road to Avonlea...

, was cast in the role of the young Clement.

Stage Play

The pilot Christmas episode of A Gift to Last was adapted for the stage by Walter Learning

Walter Learning

Walter John Learning is a Canadian theatre director, actor, and founder of Theatre New Brunswick.-Biography:Walter Learning was born in 1938 in the small village of Quidi Vidi in Newfoundland. Learning attended Bishop Feild College in St. John's and the University of New Brunswick in Fredericton,...

 and Alden Nowlan

Alden Nowlan

Alden Albert Nowlan was a critically acclaimed Canadian poet, novelist, and playwright-History:Alden Nowlan was born into rural poverty in Stanley, Nova Scotia, adjacent to Mosherville, and close to the small town of Windsor, Nova Scotia, along a stretch of dirt road that he would later refer to...

. The play has become a perennial Canadian Christmas favourite in regional theatres across the country.