Working Over Time is a four-part program chronicling the past 400 years from a point of view not often explored in history books: that of the average Canadian.

The show follows host Jeff Douglas as he travels across the country and back in time, providing a unique, hands-on exploration of the life of the common worker throughout Canadian history.

While the work is always backbreaking, Douglas manages to find the fun in each and every job he attempts, from making nails like the early Vikings, to seal hunting with the Inuit, to sodbusting like an early Western settler. Douglas is willing to get down and dirty and do whatever it takes to get the job done, whether it be cleaning a deer skin by peeing on it or performing the Log Driver’s Waltz.

While the history books focus on the big names, Working Over Time takes a look at the men and women who worked hard so that someone else could take the credit. Famed fur trader Donald Alexander Smith was photographed driving the final spike into the Canadian National Railway, but what was life like for the thousands of men who actually built the railroad? What about the stone masons, road builders, cowboys, farmers, garment workers and homemakers? Working Over Time is committed to telling their stories.