Nicholas Joseph ZubkoBorn: Pinsk, Poland, March 5,
1922 Died: Edmonton, Alberta October
25, 2000
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Nick
came to Canada from Pinsk as a young boy with his mother Olga and brother
Mike, settling on a farm near Wandering River, Alberta, which had been
homesteaded by his father Joseph Zubko. Overcoming
great difficulties, and with a natural mechanical genius for invention,
Nick became a pioneer of the Alberta motion picture industry. He
worked for 14 years in the Department of Extension at the U of A, which
was at that time the audio-visual outpost of the university, specializing
in taking the message of the university to the world outside the
university by audio visual means.
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In
the early fifties, he started Cine Audio Ltd.
which became the first 16mm film lab in Alberta, and a production and
post-production center that aided the pioneering efforts of Alberta
filmmakers. Nick was always there to solve technical problems, to lend
equipment or to give advice and encouragement. He had the ability of
adapting cameras or other equipment to do almost anything they were needed
to do. In
his own right as a young man, he made a film titled “The Fisheries of
the Great Slave,” which became an award-winning film, processed and
edited from his home. He shot stock footage for Walt Disney Studios in
their formative years. He traveled to the Nahanni Valley for footage of
that legend-ridden area. He shot footage for the Glenbow Foundation, and
of subjects as varied as the creation of the Banff School of Fine Arts,
and the Sun Dance at the Gleichen Reserve. He worked with Dr. John
Callaghan, who originated the heart-lung machine, filming open heart
surgery, so that revolutionary methods could be demonstrated by the
technology of motion pictures to surgeons all over the world. Nick
started the first 16mm film lab, building its initial film processor from
discarded surplus from the Italian government. He was an early advocate
for the creative and benevolent uses of technology, that has mushroomed
far beyond what he dreamt, into such things as the Internet, since he made his first film. He
was the founding president of the Alberta Motion Pictures Industries
Association, that has since grown into a major force in the local
filmmaking world. He
is greatly missed by Joan Zubko, children Keltie (Doug Christie);
Josh; Zoltan (Diane Walker); Daryl; Scott; Grandchildren, Cadeyrn, Cole,
Kalonica and Wyatt, Gretta Niemann, and other friends and relatives. The following quotation describes my father's life quite aptly:
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