UNITY — Unity residents will be excited to know they can watch a special television show on Citytv Flat Out Food, featuring the season finale, “SALT.” The episode was filmed at Compass Minerals in Unity.
“Our production crew came to Unity Sept. 27 and 28 of last year and filmed at the mine, which will be featured in our season finale, SALT,” Mari Climenhaga, office co-ordinator for HalterMedia Inc., tells the Unity-Wilkie Press-Herald and SASKTODAY.ca.
The episode will air on Citytv May 3. It will premiere every Wednesday and replays on Saturday and Sunday nights.
Former Luseland resident and filmmaker Adrian Halter spearheaded this production. The trailer for the season can be found at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4PlTUaBIcEY
“All the way back to 2020 before we started filming season one, I knew I wanted to do a salt episode, but things didn’t quite align in the first two seasons,” Halter says.
“For season three, I really wanted to make it happen so the first step was reaching out to someone at Compass Minerals and learning about what they did and how they did it. From there it was just a matter of getting the proper permissions to film onsite. The Unity site staff were very helpful in organizing everything and it made the filming process incredibly easy.”
“Each episode usually starts with a producer of some sort, someone who grows, raises, or produces the ingredient that is the focus of the episode. Compass Minerals is the producer in our salt episode … We interviewed Jack Neil and he and Ashlie Kopp take our host Jenn Sharp on a tour of the mine.”
The film crew included several workers featured in the background. In the episode, Halter said they wanted to showcase how salt is produced through solution mining and how it is sold throughout the province.
“It is a vital ingredient in cooking, and we wanted to show our audience how it is produced right here in Saskatchewan.”
Halter said from growing up in the neighbouring community of Luseland, he knew Sifto, now Compass Minerals, was a salt mine and drove by it many times on his way to Wilkie for hockey.
“I didn’t know for sure if they were making salt for human consumption until beginning research for season three of Flat-Out Food.”
Halter says they reflect on the current health directive advising limitation of salt intake however responds by saying, “Salt, like all things, is best used in moderation. However, everything tastes better with a touch of salt, even desserts.”
Because each episode of Flat-Out Food explores one ingredient from field, garden, lake or mine on its journey to the kitchen and then to the plate, Halter says they featured eight ingredients in season three. Saskatoon berry, garlic, yeast, wild rice, potato, egg, bison and now salt.
“For me, being from the area, it was a real pleasure to bring our entire crew to Unity and show them a glimpse of where I grew up. Even as a teen I dreamed of directing documentaries so to have achieved that dream and then to be able to highlight this part of the province in a TV series is pretty special,” adds Halter.
While Halter says they had a busy two days filming he didn’t have time to catch up with family and old friends on the trip but was able to enjoy meals at a couple of Unity establishments on the work trip.
The biggest takeaway Halter says he got from this work trip was the history of the mine.
“To have been in operation for over 70 years is astounding and to be so involved in the community as an organization is pretty special too.”
Halter said he was surprised to learn that after pulling up the slurry and drying the solution, they can compact it back before breaking it up again to achieve the various sizes of salt.
“We have never featured an organization of this size before on Flat Out Food so there was a lot more that went into the process of filming there. We wanted to make sure we could tell the story we wanted to tell, and Compass Minerals wanted to make sure that our story aligned with their brand. We were able to accomplish both things and they were fantastic to work with. I hope Compass Minerals and the town of Unity are proud of the story we told,” says Halter.
Flat Out Food airs at 10 p.m. on Wednesdays on Citytv Saskatchewan and online at citytv.com
An earlier story about Halter was carried Dec. 4, 2021, in the Unity-Wilkie Press-Herald and SASKTODAY.ca.
Halter lived in Tramping Lake until he was nine before his family moved to Luseland. His parents, Curtis and Theresa Halter live there today, while his sister lives in the community of Salvador and works in Luseland.
Halter was recently profiled in the quarterly alumni magazine, Degrees, distributed by the University of Regina. Halter is a 2010 graduate of the U of R with a fine arts degree in film and video production. The U of R magazine highlighted his life, this recent award, and the TV series Flat Out Food.
“Winning the ‘Best of Sask’ award in 2021 at Yorkton was a huge highlight. I’ve worked on numerous commercial productions throughout the years that included a TV commercial I directed for Pioneer, which won a Canadian Agri-Marketing Association (CAMA) award in 2017,” says Halter.
