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For six seasons, the series had its share of troubles yet always managed to attract Gemini and AMPIA awards and over a million regular viewers.
The premise of North of 60, a Vancouver cop transferred to a small Dene community in the Northwest Territories, certainly wasn't conventional. Now the series won't even end conventionally.
"I guess I'm the optimist who sees the glass as half full, I sort of believed it would come back in some shape or form," says Peter Kelly Gaudreault, the third and last actor to be stationed with Cpl. Michelle Kenidi (Tina Keeper) in the fictional town of Lynx River.
"But then the information I was getting in the weeks and months afterwards, I thought, 'No, this is it.' "
No, it wasn't. A half a year later, Kelly Gaudreault got a call from 60 producer Tom Dent-Cox.
It was time for RCMP Const. James Harper to return to the Bragg Creek set for a $2.8-million film based on the franchise.
In The Blue Ground, billed as "a North of 60 thriller," airs Sunday.
"I was excited when Tom called me -- I can imagine Robert was even more surprised," Kelly Gaudreault laughs.
Robert Bockstael returns in In The Blue Ground as Cpl. Brian Fletcher. Fletcher, as you may recall, walked into the woods at the end of the fifth season, never to be seen again.
Fletcher, as you may also recall, replaced Cpl. Eric Olssen (John Oliver).
"Needless to say, I did have to sit down for moment because it came out of the blue," Bockstael says of getting the call.
"I was thrilled. It was a tremendous sense of closure for me. And maybe so for fans of the show, as well, who may have wondered what happened to Brian."
"When I found out Brian was on, I thought they didn't like my work so they're bringing this other guy back," says Kelly Gaudreault.
"I'm very serious! Then when I read the script, I thought it was so intelligent."
With Albert Golo (Gordon Tootoosis) and Peter Kenidi (Tom Jackson) out of the picture, writer Andrew Wreggitt had to pull a rabbit out of his hat.
"By bringing back somebody who was such a familiar part of the landscape and the way they brought him back ... And he's so spooky in the movie. It's absolutely brilliant," Kelly Gaudreault says.
Like almost all of the characters on the show, Bockstael had written off his alter ego.
"Oh God yes. 'Death by misadventure' I understand they labelled it several episodes after I was gone. So I had certainly moved on from the North of 60 experience," he says.
If Lynx River ever needed RCMP reinforcements, it's now.
The never quiet town is rocked by the kidnapping of nurse Sarah Birkett (Tracey Cook), the discovery of a body in the woods, reports of a legendary monster, an outbreak of German measles and some suspect prospectors promising riches of diamonds to the tribe.
Now the long-lost cop has returned. And he isn't back to catch up on old times.
"By the last few episodes before his demise, he was quite mad. I believe he was quite over the edge by the time he walked over," Bockstael says of Fletcher.
Two years alone in the wilderness have done little to cure his mental health. The intricate script for In the Blue Ground indirectly contrasts Fletcher and Harper.
North of 60, however, doesn't even conventionally approach the good cop/bad cop routine.
"In a way. He's definitely the cop gone bad and I'm the cop who I think had the opportunity to go in that direction," Kelly Gaudreault says.
"The way the show was set up in the very beginning, the first cop who came along had replaced another -- a white cop who had gone mad. He'd gone completely bush crazy and done all sorts of weird things," Bockstael explains.
"While Olssen was there, he had his problems, as well. He got killed, I replaced him. I went mad. Now there's this
other cop here and he's starting to exhibit some signs of deterioration."
Kelly Gaudreault isn't oblivious to the pattern, either.
"I think that's one of the tributes to the writing that they're able to tie these two similar but different individuals together with the traces of a psychological profile they share," he says.
"There's every reason to believe I would have ended up like Fletcher. From what I understand the RCMP guys on the show were taking on the same symbolism as as the Trekkies in red uniforms. If somebody on Star Trek was dressed in red -- you knew they were going to get knocked off."