BOUCHERVILLE — Quick. Get into the time machine. Whip back to 1929. The onset of the Great Depression.

Meet Paul Guilbault, a young man starting a trucking service between Grondines, Que., and Québec City.

Get a load of his reaction when you tell him that 80 years hence, not only will his firm be one of the biggest trucking companies in Canada; its vice president will be — gasp — a woman; namely his granddaughter, Nadine Guilbault.

Then imagine his disbelief when you tell that in 2010, almost anywhere on the planet, people in offices can turn on little contraptions called computers, push a few simple buttons and see his drivers and his trucks hard at work.

Try it yourself. Click on Truckers.

Goupe Guilbault, (you can read a past Today’s Trucking profile on the family fleet here), is now starring in a National Film Board of Canada film production project called “GDP — Measuring the Human Side of The Economic Crisis.”

This yearlong online series of 200 mini films documents the experiences of Canadians coast to coast, in a wide range of industries.

Old school Guilbault driver wears his heart on his sleeve

Guilbault’s managers, drivers, dispatchers and customers tell the trucking story.

It’s a tale most fleets know all too well. North-south traffic is off by more than half; Guilbault’s dispatch room, like so many others, has been depopulated; there’s still lots of freight going out to rural areas but too many empty vans coming back.

The subjects talk in French of course; but there are subtitles. The Guilbault story is told in five short very watchable segments.

We hear from a pair of weathered owner-operators who can’t make ends meet but are too deeply in hock to quit.

We meet Chantal the waitress at Francinette’s Diner, who isn’t slinging nearly as much bacon-n-eggs as she’d like.

But we also ride with one company driver, an old-time gear-jammer whose favorite thing in the world is driving and whose favorite place to do it is into Abitibi.

And there are green shoots. Old Paul G. would shake his head in disbelief at Temiskaming’s Ecoflamme Inc., which transforms logging scraps into fuel pellets to sell across North America and Europe.

Plus he would be proud of the ingenuity of the Sageunay foundry that’s adjusting its HR policies to ensure the local guys keep jobs for as long as possible.

Paul Guillbault made it through the Great Depression. His descendents are determined to make it through this downturn.

But it won’t hurt anybody to be reminded firsthand how darn hard it is.