The Tragically Hip — At The Hundredth Meridian

JUL 01 1993 · 12:00

The Tragically Hip — At The Hundredth Meridian (1993) Director: Pete Henderson Era: Canadian Alternative Rock Ascendancy (1993) - Peak era of The Tragically Hip's mainstream Canadian breakthrough, riding the Fully Completely album cycle into national iconhood during the early-90s alternative rock surge. Exceptionally high. This video is a primary artifact of Canadian rock cultural history, representing the apex of The Tragically Hip's commercial and artistic breakthrough period. Its surrealist visual grammar, deliberate Canadiana costuming, and confirmed production provenance (director, location, date) make it a rich object for both musicological and cultural studies research. The pairing of a geographically rooted Canadian identity anthem with an Australian filming location adds a productive layer of irony and displacement for archival analysis. Tier 1 status warranted. Context: Released in April 1993 as the fourth single from Fully Completely, 'At The Hundredth Meridian' arrived during The Tragically Hip's transition from beloved Canadian cult act to undisputed national institution. The song's central geographic metaphor — the 100th meridian west as the boundary where the Great Plains begin — functions simultaneously as landscape poetry and as a declaration of Canadian artistic identity distinct from American commercial rock. The decision to film the video in Melbourne, Australia while on tour, rather than on actual Canadian plains, creates an ironic displacement that paradoxically reinforces the song's themes of geographic and cultural dislocation. The muted, warm, desaturated visual palette and surreal imagery (suspended escape artist, floating horse statue) translate the song's literary ambiguity into visual form, resisting the polished MTV-formula aesthetics dominant in the period. Director notes: Confirmed directed by Pete Henderson per Wikipedia (en.wikipedia.org/wiki/At_the_Hundredth_Meridian) and corroborated by sonichits.com and musicvideo.fandom.com. The video was filmed in Melbourne, Australia in March 1993 during the band's tour of Australia and New Zealand. Visual content documented via IMDB (imdb.com/title/tt21051254/) includes an escape artist suspended under a tree, band performance on a great plain and on a beach, and a suspended statue of a horse. Gord Downie is documented as wearing a Gros Morne National Park ball cap, a deliberate piece of Canadiana costuming. Henderson directed at least two other Tragically Hip videos from the same album cycle: 'Courage (For Hugh MacLennan)' (1992) and 'Locked in the Trunk of a Car' (1992), suggesting an ongoing creative partnership with the band during their commercial peak.