Art From Memory
"Security Blanket" Cotton, photo transfers, stitched, dyed, screen printed. (Rachel MacGillivray, New Brunswick College of Craft & Design)
Update: On November 25th Historica-Dominion Institute announced that Rachel MacGillivray was the winner of the Art from Memory Challenge. Drawn to the story of Fraser Muir, MacGillivray was moved by his bravery. She wrote out quotations from his testimonial which she silkscreened onto a hand-made quilt, along with photographs from his archival profile. She sewed pockets into the quilt’s hem where she inserted a thank-you letter she wrote to Mr. Muir for his sacrifice. The young artist provided paper and pens so that viewers may leave messages of their own. Her artwork is in the top row, far right of the photo gallery.
Natacha Mercure won second place for her untitled animation (see below).
Original article
To commemorate the 65th anniversary of the end of the Second World War, art students were invited to “rethink remembrance –– through art.” Over fifty young Canadian artists ages seventeen to thirty answered the Art from Memory challenge.
Entries were invited from students who were pursuing or had just completed an undergraduate or graduate art or design degree. The submissions were to be a sensitive and creative representation from a story of a Second World War veteran contained in The Memory Project: Stories of the Second World War archive. This collection –– an initiative of Historica-Dominion Institute –– has recorded more than 1500 stories of service and sacrifice.
The Art from Memory exhibition opens on Remembrance Day at Liberty Village’s Gallery 44Wide in Toronto. It will feature the top 10 finalists and 5 honourable mentions. Each piece of artwork shows an aspect of a veteran’s profile represented in painting, drawing, fabric art, sound installation, video, or other media.
Artwork from the finalists of the Art From Memory is in our Photo Gallery below. You can also watch finalist Natacha Mercure's short animation and listen to Howard Adler's sound-art piece. Read excerpts from the finalists’ artist statements in the Art From Memory catalogue.
A first prize of $5000 and second prize of $1500 will be announced at the closing reception on November 25. The two cash prizes are “intended to bolster the fledging careers of emerging Canadian talent,” says Davida Aronovitch, Communications Coordinator of The Memory Project. “This would afford the emerging artist and his or her work greater exposure while also celebrating its unique story of inspiration and showcasing remarkable stories and artefacts from The Memory Project.”
A panel of three prestigious jurors (C Magazine Editor Amish Morrell, Canadian artist Scott Waters and cultural reporter Sophie Perceval) will choose the grand-prize winner and a runner-up.
To see the complete Memory Project archive, go to TheMemoryProject.com.
Honour Song by Howard Adler:
Animated file by Natacha Mercure:
Visit Fraser Muir’s inspiring story here: http://www.thememoryproject.com/Stories/Veteran-Profile.aspx?itemid=1811.
Second prize went to Natacha Mercure for her untitled animation (see below).
Asian Heritage Month
May 2012 marks the tenth anniversary of Asian Heritage month in Canada. Senator Vivienne Poy called for the designation as a way to honour the contributions of Canadians of Asian descent, both past and present.
2012 also marks the 65th anniversary of the repeal of The Chinese Immigration Act. Until its repeal in 1947, immigration laws were restrictive and prevented Asian Canadians from not only immigrating, but also voting and holding public office. After 1947, it became easier for Asians to immigrate to Canada to establish better lives. Chinese immigrants were given the right to vote and were able to work as accountants, lawyers, and pharmacists. In 1954, Margaret Jean Gee was the first woman of Chinese descent who was called to the bar in British Columbia.
Citizenship and Immigration Canada has a put together a number of resources in honour of Asian Heritage Month. You can view an online exhibit of influential Asians who immigrated to Canada (or whose parents came to Canada from Asian countries). The exhibit showcases violinist Juliette Kang (whose parents arrived from Korea) and Japanese architect Raymond Moriyama. The exhibit shows the contributions that Asian Canadians have made to Canada as musicians, actors, filmmakers, designers, and businesspeople. The exhibit is available online and will also be traveling throughout Canada in the month of May. On Citizenship and Immigration Canada’s website, students and teachers will also find an online quiz, photo galleries, timelines, and other education resources for the classroom.
— Text by Norah Myers
Calgary Stampede: Photo Gallery
Over a million people have descended upon Calgary for the city’s most famous and beloved event. First held in 1912, the Calgary Stampede is a ten day event filled with competitions, concerts, parades and exhibitions. This article, from a 1933 issue of The Beaver, provides a glimpse into the sights and sounds of an early Stampede. Read about the Wild Cow Milking Contest, Calf Roping, the popular Chuck Wagon Race and the other events that kept crowds shouting, laughing and on their feet.
Below that is a collection of photos highlighting Stampede events over the years. Click on the first image to start the slideshow. All images courtesy of Peel's Prairie Provinces, a digital initiative of the University of Alberta Libraries.
For more archived articles from The Beaver, visit our Trading Post.
CHA: Dr. Mary Lynn Stewart
Dr. Mary Lynn Stewart, the president of the Canadian Historical Association, recently presided over the CHA’s annual meeting, held this year in Montreal to coincide with the annual Congress of the Humanities and Social Sciences.
Dr. Stewart is a historian at Simon Fraser University in British Columbia. She spoke to Canada’s History following the CHA meeting.
Garneau Prize: John C. Weaver
John Lutz (left) presents John C. Weaver with the Fraçois-Xavier Garneau Medal.
The Canadian Historical Association held its annual awards gala in Montreal recently, where it handed out the François-Xavier Garneau Medal. This is the most prestigious history award in Canada. It is only offered every five years, and goes to the book that displays "exceptional merit" in the preceding five-year period.
This year’s winner was John C. Weaver, for his 2003 book, "The Great Land Rush and the Making of the Modern World, 1650-1900. Weaver, a professor of history at McMaster University in Hamilton, spoke to Canada’s History shortly after winning his award.
Changing Landscape in the Northwest Territories
David Laird was first resident Lieutenant Governor in 1876
Elections in the Northwest Territories are run differently than in other places across Canada. There are no political parties and the candidates run as independents. While the Northwest Territories now has many of the powers and responsibilities that provinces have, it wasn’t always that way. This timeline is a brief look at the evolution of the landscape and government of the Northwest Territories.
Rupert's Land and the North-Western Territory are transferred to the government of Canada. The land, which includes present-day Yukon, mainland Northwest Territories, Nunavut, Saskatchewan, Alberta, and much of Manitoba, Ontario and Quebec, was amalgamated and renamed North-West Territories.
The North-West Territories is governed directly by the federal government, who maintains control over most matters, including public land, natural resources, settlement and immigration, and public works.
The North-West Territories is governed by a federally-appointed Lieutenant Governor and Council until 1888. David Laird becomes the first resident Lieutenant Governor in 1876.
Grievances over federal control in the West culminate in the North-West Rebellion, led by Louis Riel and the Métis.
The Northwest Territories Act was amended to create a Legislative Assembly, consisting of twenty-two elected members and three non-voting legal advisers. The first general election was held in June, 1888.
Yukon is created as a separate territory, as the area experiences a population boom in the wake of the gold rush.
The Provinces of Alberta and Saskatchewan are created to provide more provincial autonomy. However, the now-reduced Northwest Territories is again governed by a federally-appointed Commissioner and council.
The appointed council begins to introduce elected members.
The Northwest Territories obtains its first fully elected Territorial Council of fifteen members.
The territorial government assumes full control of health care.
Nunavut is created as a separate territory under the 1993 Nunavut Land Claims Agreement Act. The modern boundaries of the Northwest Territories are established.
For more on the history of elections in the North-West Territories, visit the CBC Digital Archives.
Congress 2011: Dr. Ann McGrath on including the Aboriginal perspectives
Pictorial postcard of King Billy, a Murchison Aboriginal, Western Australia, 1906. / P Falk and Co. Ltd, National Archives of Australia, A1721, 189.
Aboriginal history needs to be recognized, valued, says Australian scholar.
Historians need to break the “stranglehold” of European-dominated narratives if history is to become more inclusive for Aboriginals, says a leading Australian scholar.
Historian Dr. Ann McGrath of Australian National University is engaged in a wide-ranging project that looks at “place” and its role in shaping indigenous perspectives.
In Australia, like in Canada, traditional historical narratives have focused on dates of contact between aboriginals and European colonizers. This is reflected on the land, where places occupied for millennia are today known by European-centric names imposed on the aboriginal landscape by early explorers and others.
“When you travel through Australia, you’re confronted with the chronology of colonialism,” McGrath told historians assembled in Fredericton for the annual Canadian Historical Association national conference. “We have to escape the stranglehold around the dates of contact. There has been a stranglehold of the Imperial British Narrative — it was the way history textbooks were written, it is the way history has been told. What that did was whitewash a very long Aboriginal presence.”
McGrath, the Director of the Australian Centre for Indigenous History, is part of a team of academic and government stakeholders in Australia that is working with Aborigines to better understand how a sense of place shaped their history and identity as a people.
It’s a project that comes with controversy, because until relatively recently, some non-aboriginal Australians have been reluctant to acknowledge the ancient history and presence of the Aborigines. For Australians of a certain age, their notion of Australian history begins with European contact. It’s a staunchly British version of history: the story of a wild land that was tamed through the civilizing efforts of white colonizers. Part of this phenomenon can be connected to Aboriginal land claims, and concern from non-Aboriginals that acknowledging the millennia-old Aborigine presence is a de facto endorsement of their claims to land title.
The problem with that narrow vision of Australian history is that it willfully ignores the presence of Aboriginal culture and history that is apparent everywhere on the Australian landscape.
McGrath’s team is taking to the field with Aborigine representatives, and videotaping them in their sacred and traditional places, where they recount tales and oral histories. McGrath says it’s important to maintain a multi-media component, especially a video component, because “gestural language” is an important part of traditional Aborigine ways of communicating.
Among the locations they are visiting are Uluru, home of the iconic Ayers Rock in Australia’s outback, as well as Kakadu National Park in Australia’s northern territory. She plans to enhance the videotaped material with modern technological tools such as GPS and Google mapping, and then make it available on Ipods, Ipads and other devices. She hopes travellers to Australia will be able to journey through Aboriginal landscapes, access the multimedia files via their Ipads and other devices, and learn about Aboriginal culture and history while in the field.
The ultimate goal, she said, is to “deconstruct the pre-eminence of Europeans in the landscape.”
Congress 2011: David Hackett Fischer on Champlain's Dream
Pulitzer-prize winning historian challenges peers to blaze new path.
Historians need to rethink the way they practice their craft, says an acclaimed American scholar who has written one of the most influential books on Samuel de Champlain in a generation.
Pulitzer-prize winning historian David Hackett Fischer was the keynote speaker at the Canadian Historical Association meetings at Congress 2011 in Fredericton, New Brunswick.
He urged a rapt audience of historians to try a “third way” of history — one that combines the old-school disciplined methods of historians such as Donald Creighton, with the second-wave of history that focused less on “great events and great men” and told stories about the lives and lifestyles average citizens.
“We need a third way forward,” he said. “There’s a power of fusion between the first two ways that can realize a greater strength by combining both of them.”
There are 6,000 Canadian scholars attending Congress 2011, including several hundred historians. For almost a week, they will be attending various sessions, where colleagues and new scholars will present papers on their research.
The Alfred G. Bailey auditorium at St. Thomas University was packed for the keynote address by Fischer, who works at Brandeis University, a private liberal arts research university in Boston.
Fischer’s latest book, Champlain’s Dream, has garnered acclaim on both sides of the Atlantic. “Champlain’s Dream is a book every Canadian should own,” the National Post raved in its review.
In the book, Fischer casts new light on one of Canada’s most famous, yet mysterious explorers, by placing him in the context of his time and his place. Using ethnographic techniques, he builds a three-dimensional portrait of the man who founded Quebec City and explored much of New France.
Fischer said following his address that what impressed him most about Champlain was the explorer’s humanity. Unlike some other explorers, who came to the New World to conquer indigeneous peoples, Champlain hoped to create a new kind of co-existence based on mutual respect.
In essence, he hoped his French settlers and their Native allies and neighbours would someday become one people — “Champlain’s dream.”
“Champlain has lots to teach us,” Fischer argues. “The main idea is humanity: it’s a sympathy for others, a way of treating others, of acting in humane ways. That’s the most important thing.
Critics and academics alike have praised Fischer’s ability to write complex ideas in a highly accessible fashion. His Champlain’s Dream is no dry academic journal piece. It lives and breathes, making the reader feel as if she or he was actually alongside Champlain during his journey to the North America.
Fischer says accessibility is a key concern for him when it comes to history writing. It’s vital not only to the health of the discipline, but to reaching other people,” he said. “The great question is how to write books that people would want to read — but serious ones, good ones.”
Congress 2011: Dr. Jerry Bannister fears a loss of Loyalism research
Loyalist man, Saint John, New Brunswick / (c) All rights reserved by Acerman310, found at http://www.flickr.com/photos/acerman310
Loyalty waning among historians when it comes to studying pre-twentieth century?
Are Canadian historians too focused on the twentieth century? Have they abandoned the study of earlier, more traditional subjects such as the Loyalists? And is that impacting our understanding of this crucial period of Canada’s past?
These are tough questions, and they were top-of-mind during a wide-ranging discussion on the “New History of Loyalism in the British Atlantic World” during the Canadian Historical Association’s annual conference in Fredericton, New Brunswick.
Jerry Bannister, a historian at Dalhousie University in Halifax, laments the collective shift of focus away from traditional, older histories of Canada toward more modern events. Not that these twentieth-century stories aren’t important, but rather, that it means fewer historians are doing the research to further flesh out our understanding of Canada and its histories during the eighteenth century.
“There is a relentless shift in myopia, a shrinking in our field of vision and we are becoming increasing captivated by twentieth-century history,” Bannister said following his research presentation. “The problem is: even if that is the way we want to go — let’s re-orient our university curriculum even our school curriculum and study the twentieth century — even if, you can’t do that without an understanding of the nineteenth century. Twentieth-century Canada doesn’t make sense without nineteenth century Canada. And 1867 (the date of Confederation) doesn’t make sense without 1776 (the launch of the American Revolution)."
Bannister’s research paper was titled, "Revolution in the Loyalist Era: The Remaking of British America (1745-1800)." He isn’t sure why the study of loyalism has fallen out of vogue. In the United States, he said, Americans remain fascinated by that period of their history. To them, it’s the story of forging a nation in the crucible of war, of standing up against British oppression and fighting for liberty and justice. You see continued interest today in the likes of the modern “Tea Party” movement, where right-wing Americans are banding together to repudiate what they see is a shift to the left in their country. This is not the case in Canada, where many Canadians would be hard pressed to remember the details of the Loyalist influx into Canada following the American Revolution.
New Brunswick, the site of the CHA annual meeting, is likely the exception to this rule. Saint John, New Brunswick, for instance, is known as the Loyalist City, and in fact, a giant caricature of a staunch, smiling Loyalist, greets visitors to that city.
Among the key questions academics are pondering when it comes to loyalists is, exactly what is a loyalist? The traditional definition has been a group of elite British citizens living in the thirteen colonies who refused to join the American Revolution.
However, this definition excludes the first nations who fought on the British side during the Revolutionary War, as well as the black slaves who fought against the fledging United States forces in an attempt to win their freedom. Bannister says he hopes academics and others re-engage with the study of loyalism, and accept the challenge of making it their focus of research.
“What I would advocate is both a vigorous scholarly and pubic debate about Loyalists and loyalism,” he said. “What I feel passionately about is that it needs to be discussed and debated. I would rather have a debate and have people say the wrong things, than have no debate at all.”
Congress 2011: Dr. Jordan Stanger-Ross on Japanese-Canadian property seizures
Group of interned Japanese-Canadian men at a road camp. / Credit: Library and Archives Canada / PA-118000.
Historian studying seizure of Japanese-Canadian property in WWII.
Many Canadians today are aware that their federal government rounded up Japanese Canadians during the Second World War and shipped them off to internment camps the interior of British Columbia.
Considered a threat due to Japan’s involvement in the war, these citizens were ordered removed from coastal areas — a decision that proved both traumatic and life altering for the internees. But what ever happened to the homes and property seized during the internments?
Historian Dr. Jordan Stanger-Ross of the University of Victoria is studying that very question. He is researching an event that occurred between 1943 and 1945 in a section of the Downtown Eastside of Vancouver that forever changed the complexion of the community. Four hundred properties were seized from their rightful Japanese-Canadian owners and sold.
“It’s one of the low points of Canadian history,” Stanger-Ross told a group of historians attending his presentation, titled “Who Bought Vancouver’s Japantown?” at the annual Canadian Historical Association meeting in Fredericton, New Brunswick.
He says the seizures took place during a period of “racist political culture” in British Columbia. In a way, it was a form of slum clearance with the ultimate goal of placing the community back in the hands of “white” British Columbians.
“There are clearly people who envision this as an opportunity to consolidate white holding of B.C., to eradicate Japanese ownership, to realize longstanding racist goals in B.C.,” he says.
“In the case of the east end… a transfer to white ownership would have been a fashion of slum clearance, and that was part of the excitement of city aldermen about the process.”
Ironically, this transfer to white ownership didn’t totally occur. Stanger-Ross says that the advisory board created to oversee the process of selling the seized homes usually sold to the highest bidder, regardless of the buyers’ race, thereby thwarting the goals of the provincial and federal officials who sought to create white homogeneity in the community.
The study is part of a larger project on real estate and the urban history of east Vancouver. Stanger-Ross, whose research and teaching examines the history of immigration, race, and ethnicity in Canada and the United States, hopes his study shines new light on policy and how it is implemented, taking into account the complexity of these types of events.
Congress 2011: Michel Ducharme claims Sir John A. Macdonald Prize
Michel Ducharme in Paris, France.
The concept of “freedom,” and most importantly, how Canadians viewed, and exercised, that freedom. That’s the issue that lies at the heart of the best academic history book of 2011, as chosen by the Canadian Historical Association. This year’s winner of the Sir John A. Macdonald prize for academic writing is Michel Ducharme of the University of British Columbia. He won the top writing prize at this year’s CHA awards gala for his 2010 book, Le concept de liberté au Canada a l’époque des Révolutions atlantiques (1776-1838) (available through Chapters.Indigo.ca).
Calling the book both “original and provocative,” the CHA praised Ducharme’s text for its thoughtful and nuanced examination of concepts of liberty in the 18th- and 19th- century Lower Canada and the Atlantic regions. Set amid a period of revolution in the United States, as well as in Europe, Ducharme argues that residents of this area of Canada also believed strongly in “freedom,” but a different kind of freedom than, say, their American revolutionary cousins.
“The book is a reaction to a cliché in Canadian studies that the United States is based on freedom and Canada is based on order,” he said in an exclusive interview with Canada’s History magazine. “People in Canada were talking about freedom all the time — they just weren’t discussing the same kind of freedom.” Ducharme explains that Canadian concepts of freedom were based more along lines of “individual rights, not political rights.”
The Sir John A. Macdonald Prize is the top history-writing prize for Canadian academics. It was just one of several prizes awarded at the CHA annual meetings in Fredericton, awards that were sponsored by Canada’s History Society. The winner of the Sir John A. Prize will also take part in a special ceremony at Rideau Hall in Ottawa in the fall of 2011, as part of the newly expanded Canada’s History Awards.
Ducharme said he was both “overwhelmed and very happy” to win the prize, adding, “it was very surprising — I never thought I would be shortlisted, so it was a big surprise.”
Here is the complete list of winners from the CHA awards:
- CHA Best Article, Mark Osborne Humphries
- Prix Eugene Forsey Prize, Julia Maureen Smith
- Public History Prize, Ronald Rudin
- Political History Group Article Prize, Bradley Miller
- Political History Group Book Prize, Ivana Caccia
- Canadian Committee on Women’s History Prize, French language winner, Maude-Emmanuelle Lambert, English language winner, Heidi MacDonald
- Aboriginal History Prize, Keith Thor Carlson
- JCHA best article prize, Béatrice Richard
- Prix Bullen Prize, Raul A. Necochea Lopez
- Clio Atlantic, Dean Bavington
- Clio Quebec, Andreé Lévesque
- Clio Ontario, Michelle A. Hamilton
- Clio Prairies, Brenda Macdougall
- Clio North, Vuntut Gwitchin First Nation and Shirleen Smith
- Clio B.C., Keith Thor Carlson
- Individual Achievement Award, Robert A. J. McDonald
- Ferguson Prize, Nicholas Dew
The meeting saw a changing of the guard at the top of the CHA executive, with Mary Lynn Stewart of Simon Fraser University passing the reins to incoming president, Parks Canada West Coast historian Lyle Dick.
Controversy and Compromise over the Manitoba Schools Question
Thomas Greenway, Manitoba Premier 1888-1900
When Manitobans cast their vote on July 11, 1888, they could not have imagined that their selection would propel Manitoba into the national spotlight, drastically alter the province’s future, and create a controversy that would become a standard entry in history textbooks for years to come.
The Lead-up
In 1887, longtime premier John Norquay resigned after a dispute with Prime Minister John A. Macdonald. Norquay, responding to an increasing pressure from Manitobans to end the CPR monopoly in the area, had ordered the construction of a rail line to connect Winnipeg with the U.S. border. Macdonald retaliated by withholding a previously promised land transfer, leaving the province with a deficit of $256,000 and causing the Norquay government’s collapse. The Liberal Party, under the leadership of Thomas Greenway, stepped in to govern.
Once in power, Greenway continued Norquay’s work, fighting against Ottawa for more provincial rights and the end of the CPR monopoly. It was more timing than Greenway’s skill that caused Prime Minster Macdonald and the CPR to reach an agreement to end the monopoly. Nevertheless, Greenway became a champion of provincial rights amongst Manitobans. With his popularity secure, Greenway took the opportunity to call an election, winning 33 of 38 seats. Manitobans elected their first Liberal Premier and the man who was going to create controversy and history with the Manitoba Schools Question.
The Manitoba Schools Question
When the province was created under the Manitoba Act of 1870, the population was divided almost equally between French-speaking Catholics and English-speaking Protestants. As such, a dual school system was created, with public funds allotted to both Catholic and Protestant-run schools. However, by the time Greenway was in power, Manitoba was increasingly inhabited by English-speaking Protestants, with many — like Greenway himself — coming from Ontario. As the demographics shifted, cultural and religious tensions increased.
In 1890, Greenway’s government made changes to the education system that were long feared by French Catholics. He abolished the dual system and set up a non-denominational school system. Not only would Catholic schools no longer receive public funding, but parents choosing a Catholic education for their children would still have to pay taxes to the public system. The legislation dictated that schools would be run in English and removed bilingual provisions of the Manitoba Act, making English the only language used in the courts and government. Manitoba’s French population felt their language and culture were being threatened and that their rights guaranteed under the Manitoba Act violated.
The issue quickly moved beyond Manitoba’s borders and engulfed the entire country. It divided French and English Canadians, created tension between Catholics and non-Catholics and called into question the role of the provincial and federal government in education.
A series of court challenges against the new legislation were launched by Manitoba’s French-Catholics. An 1892 ruling by the Privy Council ruled that new legislation was valid, but another ruling in 1895 held that the federal government could disallow the legislation and restore funding to the denominational schools. The federal government, reluctant to take any bold moves in the matter, was forced to get involved.
Eyes on the Federal Stage
In 1896, the Federal Conservative government, led by MacKenzie Bowell — the third leader to replace John A. Macdonald after his death in 1891 — voiced his support of Manitoba’s French-Catholics and legislation to restore their rights. The issue even cut through the Conservative party, and cabinet members forced Bowell to resign. Charles Tupper took up the Conservative leadership and introduced another remedial bill. It was opposed by the Liberals, led by Wilfred Laurier, and Tupper was forced to abandon the bill and call an election — less than two months into his term as Prime Minister.
The Federal election of 1896 was fought largely on the Manitoba Schools Question. With the Conservative Party still divided over the issue, the party was viewed as weak and disorganized and faced much criticism. Laurier’s Liberals, who took a passive position on the issue, won the most seats and defeated the Conservatives.
The Compromise
Laurier’s “middle-of-the-road” position on the issue led to the Laurier-Greenway Compromise within the first year of his term. Under the compromise, Catholic teachers could be employed in schools with forty or more Catholic children and, if requested by enough families, religious instruction could be permitted for half an hour a day. Where there were enough students, French could be used in addition to English.
The Compromise was mostly a concession for French-Catholics. The rights granted were done so on an individual basis, and provided no protection for their language, religion or culture as a whole. The bitter controversy is still remembered as one of the most important fights, and losses, for French-language rights in Canada.
To learn more about the Manitoba Schools Questions, visit Manitobia. It's a great resource that uses digitized materials to tell some of the most important stories in Manitoba's history.
Country In Canada
If you haven't already watched the old video clips, be sure to check out History Spotlight: Canadian Country Legends.
First recording of traditional instrumental country music by French-Canadian fiddler J.B. Roy.
Country music first introduced to Canada through U.S. radio airwaves from Fort Worth, Texas.
First Canadian-made country music radio broadcast, playing music by George Wade and the Cornhuskers.
First Canadian country music hit single called My Swiss Moonlight Lullaby by Wilf Carter.
Hank Snow’s hit single I’m Movin’ On was ranked number one on the country music charts for 22 weeks, making it one of the greatest singles released in the first fifty years of recorded country music.
Anne Murray’s first hit single Snowbird is released, launching her career in both Canada and the United States.
Stompin’ Tom Connors releases his album The Hockey Song, featuring the single of the same name that has become a favourite for Canadian hockey fans.
k. d. lang won a Grammy Award (Best Female Country Vocal Performance) for her album Absolute Torch and Twang.
Shania Twain’s album Come on Over is released, becoming the best-selling country album of all time.
Canadian Country Music Awards to be held in Edmonton, Alberta.
Early NHL: Montreal 1917-1918
Arena fire, corner Wood Avenue & Western, Westmount, QC, 1917 | MP-1977.76.168
Image courtesy of the McCord Museum. More information about the photo can be found on their website.
The 1917–1918 NHL season should’ve been one of celebration. The league was in its inaugural season with four teams ready to compete for the league’s first ever title. Yet, just as the party hats were brought out and the tacky commemorative coins were given, the NHL was dealt two sucker punches.
First, Montreal Wanderers owner Sam Lichtenhein demanded three players from each of the other three teams. He claimed the Wanderers were at a competitive disadvantage to the Montreal Canadiens, Toronto Arenas, and Ottawa Senators. Lichtenhein wanted a better team or he wanted out of the league.
Second, the Montreal Arena — the rink of both the Montreal Canadiens and the Montreal Wanderers — burned down on January 2 in a series of fiery explosions, leaving nothing but rubble.
While tension was already high with Lichtenhein, things only got worse when the Montreal Arena burned down. The Canadiens and Wanderers no longer had a home rink.
An emergency meeting was held to determine where the teams would play. For the Canadiens, the solution to the fire was simple: the team resumed play at the Jubilee Arena, the rink where they played before joining the NHL.
Lichtenhein on the other hand, once again said the Wanderers wouldn’t be playing anywhere if his demands weren’t met. When his request was turned down, Lichtenhein said the Wanderers would never compete again and resigned from the league.
The Wanderers’ withdrawal was not accepted immediately. On January 5, the Wanderers were supposed to play against the Arenas in Toronto. When the Wanderers didn’t show up, the team was assessed a $500 fine and stripped of its league membership.
The NHL continued with only three teams for the remainder of the 1917–1918 season and the 1918–1919 season. The next year, the Quebec Bulldogs joined the NHL.
— Text by Ryan Kessler
More reading
Early NHL: Remembering Howie Morenz
Howie Morenz won three Stanley Cups, led the Montreal Canadiens in scoring for seven straight seasons, and was ranked by The Hockey News as the fifteenth best player in hockey history. Yet, with all that accomplished during his life, he is still more commonly known for his untimely death.
In this Canada's History podcast, Ryan Kessler speaks with Dean Robinson, author of Howie Morenz: Hockey's First Superstar.
On January 28, 1937, Morenz and the Canadiens met the Chicago Black Hawks at the Montreal Forum. During the first period, Morenz brought the puck into the Black Hawks’ defensive zone, closely followed by opposing defenseman Earl Seibert.
Morenz — skating at full speed — lost his balance and crashed into the boards. Seibert couldn’t avoid Morenz in time and landed on him, resulting in four broken bones in Morenz’s left leg.
Morenz was told by doctors he would never play hockey again.
He stayed in a Montreal hospital for the next five weeks. Just as his leg started showing signs of improvement, he reportedly died of an embolism on March 8. His line mate and close friend Aurèle Joliat said Morenz died of a broken heart because he couldn’t live without hockey.
The funeral took place two days later at the Montreal Forum, where more than 12,000 fans paid their respects to the late hero. Thousands more lined the street for his funeral procession.
— Text by Ryan Kessler
Online extras
Early NHL: Spanish Flu
The Stanley Cup Finals have only been cancelled twice in the history of the NHL. Most recently was in the 2004-2005 season, as a result of a lockout by team owners. However, the first cancelled Stanley Cup Final was in the 1918-1919 season when the Spanish Flu infected the Montreal Canadiens locker room.
In our Canada's History podcast, Ryan Kessler and Fever Season author Eric Zweig discuss the life and death of Joe Hall.
The flu was at its deadliest in the fall of 1918, but it still lingered in March, 1919, when the Stanley Cup Finals were taking place. At that time, the Stanley Cup went to the winner of a best-of-five series between the NHL and the Pacific Coast Hockey Association (PCHA)’s top teams. The Montreal Canadiens took the ice for the NHL and the Seattle Metropolitans suited up for the PCHA.
By the end of the fifth game, the series was knotted up with two wins for each team and a draw. During that fifth game, Hall of Fame defenseman Joe “Bad Joe” Hall left early, feeling ill. Many other players also appeared tired in the contest. Even left-winger and scorer of the game-winning goal – Jack McDonald – looked more fatigued than usual.
As it turned out, Hall, McDonald, three other Canadiens players and their owner – George Kennedy – had contracted the flu.
The Canadiens management knew the team couldn’t continue playing. After all, the flu racked up a higher death toll than all of the First World War. The disease spread across the world quickly and struck viciously, with a higher mortality rate than anything seen in the lifetime of the Montreal Canadiens players.
The five players and Kennedy were admitted to bed rest in their hotel, but that wasn’t enough precaution. The finals were cancelled on April 1. The teams never re-scheduled a tie-breaking sixth game and the series ended without naming a champion.
The flu resulted in two deaths. Hall died on April 5th in a Seattle hospital of pneumonia, aged 37. Kennedy’s influenza had severely damaged his immune system, leading to his death in October, 1921.
— Text by Ryan Kessler
Online extras and more reading:
Early NHL: The Underdog Black Hawks
Championship teams are supposed to represent the best a league has to offer. However, in 1938, Canadians and hockey fans everywhere were shocked when one of the league’s worst teams won the Stanley Cup. Not only that, but they did it with a roster some thought was nothing more than a gimmick.
Chicago Black Hawks owner Major Frederic McLaughlin decided before the 1937–38 season that he wanted his team to win a Stanley Cup with only American players — his patriotism stemmed from time he spent in the First World War.
Had McLaughlin stuck to his plan, he would’ve had only one forward, one defenseman, and one goalie. Instead, he brought in five more American players — the most of any Stanley Cup winning team.
At first, McLaughlin’s experiment seemed to be a failure. The team finished with only 14 wins in 48 games, a full 30 points behind the division-leading Boston Bruins. However, the Black Hawks were better than Detroit Red Wings by only two points, allowing them entry into the Stanley Cup Playoffs.
In the playoffs, the Black Hawks stunned the hockey world when they defeated the Montreal Canadiens and New York Americans in the first two rounds.
In the Stanley Cup Final, the Black Hawks were the clear-cut underdogs against the mighty Toronto Maple Leafs. It also didn’t help their chances that their starting goalie, Mike Karakas was taken out of the lineup with a broken toe.
Yet the Black Hawks — who had such a pitiful regular season — managed to win the next two games with minor league goaltenders. The Black Hawks lost the third game, but in the fourth, Karakas came back to win a Stanley Cup for the city of Chicago.
The 1938 Chicago Black Hawks have the worst record (14–25–9) of any team to win the Stanley Cup.
— Text by Ryan Kessler
Father of the Underground Railroad
William Still.
A new PBS documentary airing February 6, 2012, chronicles the life and legacy of a man known in his time as the “Father of the Underground Railroad.” (Check your local listings for times.)
To learn more about the film, we spoke to executive producer Gordon Henderson. Henderson began his career as a journalist and parliamentary correspondent, and is the founder and president of 90th Parallel Productions. History-enthusiasts may recognize his name as the series producer for the CBC’s Canada: A People’s History.
William Still (c. 1821–1902) was an abolitionist and civil rights activist who helped countless black slaves find freedom in Canada. Perhaps even more important, were the diligent records he kept of the people he helped along the way. In 1872, Still compiled the biographical details, personal narratives, and letters of over 600 fugitive slaves and published The Underground Railroad Records. This work became both a powerful anti-slavery testament and an invaluable historical document.
The one hour documentary, Underground Railroad: The William Still Story, is produced by 90th Parallel Productions in association with Rodgers Broadcasting and WNED-TV Buffalo/Toronto. The film features the talented Dion Johnstone in the role of William Still, and also relies on historical consultants and primary documents to bring life to the people and stories contained within Still’s papers. In telling about the struggles and achievements of America’s fugitive slaves, Underground Railroad remembers the important role that Canada played in helping them find freedom.
Other online extensions:
Grand Tactical Reenactment
Canada’s History is getting excited about the 200th anniversary of the War of 1812.
Andrew Workman, a new addition to the Canada's History new media team, attended the Grand Tactical reenactment at Fanshawe Pioneer Village in London on October 1st, 2011. The event featured hundreds of reenactors bringing the excitement of the time period back to life. Take a look at these photos from this fantastic event.
History Idol: Agnes Macphail
Agnes Macphail was the first woman in Canada to break into the House of Commons, and she was far more than a token female politician during her long career serving her constituents.
Born in rural Ontario, Macphail overcame the conservative expectations of her family and made a career for herself as a teacher, working at several rural postings. But she soon found her calling in politics.
Macphail was raised by farmers and was acutely aware of the issues they faced. She was elected to represent them in 1921 — the first woman elected to the federal government.
Thus followed a productive political career in both federal and provincial politics during which Macphail fought tirelessly against a barrage of gender discrimination through which she had to constantly prove herself worthy. Even with this added pressure, Macphail championed issues such as worker's rights, prison reform, seniors' pension, and gender equity, making great headway in many areas.
Writer and humourist Will Ferguson admires Macphail over other gender pioneers because of her progressive take on gender equity. Unlike persons case champion Emily Murphy and Nellie McClung, who fought for women's vote, Ferguson says Macphail did not subscribe to the then-prominent maternal feminist camp that serves to further divide the genders. Maternal feminists argue that women deserve a place in politics due to their more gentle, pure and nurturing natures, which would have a positive effect on political doings.
“Agnes Macphail['s approach] was very much equal rights, which is the fact that women deserved the vote not because they're angels and not because they're special, but because they are people with those rights, and equal rights are an end in themselves,” Ferguson explains.
Ferguson commends Macphail for standing her ground in a hostile environment, which she addressed with humour.
“What I really admire about her is that she took no guff from the men, and she was quite quite funny,” he says. “But most importantly she had an immense impact.”
“She went into politics for what she could do, not what politics could do for her.”
Macphail sets the example of a fearless politician that had the courage of her convictions, Ferguson says. She should be respected for standing her ground and keeping touch with her goal, which was to help those she represented.
“She went into politics for what she could do, not what politics could do for her. So there is an integrity to her that we sadly lack in today's leaders,” Ferguson says. “The politicians always start off with these great principles but they soon sacrifice them on the alter of expedience, which Agnes Macphail never, never did.”
-Text by Sandy Klowak
Agnes Macphail was born on March 25 in Grey County, Ontario to Dugald Macphail and Henrietta Campbell.
Macphail graduated from teacher's college in Stratford Ontario and got a job at Gowanlocks near Port Elgin, Ontario, the first of many teaching positions.
Two years after women gained the right to run for Parliament, Macphail was elected to the House of Commons in the first federal election in which women could vote, representing South-East Grey County.
Macphail went as a delegate to League of Nations in Geneva-- the first Canadian woman to do so. There, she was a member of World Disarmament Committee.
Macphail played a large role in establishing a royal commission to investigate Canadian prison conditions, leading to several reforms.
Macphail was defeated in the election, ending a 19-year run as MP.
Macphail was one of the two first women elected into the Ontario legislature, the other being Rae Luckock. Though she was not re-elected in 1945, she regained a spot in the legislature from 1948-51.
Macphail brought in legislation demanding equal pay for equal work for Ontario women.
Macphail died just before Senate appointments were to be announced, for which she was being considered.
History Idol: George Brown
George Brown
George Brown's contributions to Canada can't be denied. And his fiery way with words is still making an impression.
As a young man, Brown travelled to New York with his father Peter in 1837. But the dry goods store they opened soon bored the politically active pair. Peter, assisted by his eager son, began a string of journalistic endeavors, and after a move north to Toronto, they created the Toronto Globe.
Brown, spearheading the new paper, wrote politically charged editorials exploring issues including separation of church and state and representation by population in elections. Brown was particularly concerned that the French-Canadians, and the Roman Catholic Church, held a disproportionate amount of political control.
For the outspoken journalist, it was an easy move into the political realm, and the Globe soon became the mouthpiece for the Reform movement (the forerunner of the Liberal Party). In 1851 Brown was elected to the Legislative Assembly of Canada as a Reform Party representative.
Christopher Moore, writer, popular historian, and long-time columnist with Canada's History, admires Brown's fiery passion.
“Brown stands out for me because he was a man of tremendous political views, a great polemicist ... he liked arguing with people about politics.”
According to Moore, Brown's defining moment came in the summer of 1864, when he signed onto a coalition that would work toward uniting all British North American colonies. Despite their differences, Brown successfully negotiated with George-Étienne Cartier, French-Canadian leader and John A. Macdonald ally.
“Accommodation between regions and between interests and between ideologies has always been an essential part of the Canadian confederation and it's a model that George Brown's very intimately related with,” Moore said.
Moore also admires Brown for declining to seek the office of prime minister. Moore says today’s political climate overemphasizes the power of the government leader, and that politicians today could learn a thing or two from Brown’s example.
“The thing I liked about George Brown is how he evoked a political world where people with strong views and political effectiveness could put their ideas forward and sometimes even get them through — it wasn't all about who's prime minister and who's not prime minister,” Moore said. “I do think that we're much too leader-centric in our politics today.”
Here's Chris Moore talking about his History Idol, George Brown.
— Text by Sandy Klowak
History Idol: John Rae
Arctic explorer John Rae.
Canadian author Ken McGoogan has written four books about the search for the Northwest Passage. So it is no surprise that he has chosen an Arctic explorer as his History Idol.
John Rae is not as well known as some of the other famous names of northern exploration — people like Sir John Franklin, for instance. But McGoogan argues that Rae deserves greater recognition than he has received to date because of what he accomplished.
To hear McGoogan's reasons for restoring John Rae's place in Canadian history, listen to his podcast with Canada's History Senior Editor Nelle Oosterom.
About John Rae
John Rae (1813–1893) was a nineteenth century surgeon, fur trader, explorer, and author who solved two great mysteries of Arctic exploration. He discovered both the final link in the Northwest Passage and the fate of the lost expedition of Sir John Franklin.
However, he was not popular with the Victorian establishment during his lifetime. He adopted native methods of travel in the Arctic, which was disapproved of by the Royal Navy. He was critical of naval officers but had great admiration for the Inuit, who accepted him as a friend.
He shocked Victorian England after reporting that the Franklin expedition had resorted to cannibalism. This caused him to be vilified and virtually erased from history.
History Idol: Lord Durham
Lord Durham
Text by Amanda Hope
The name Lord Durham is one that few Canadians recognize. This, despite the fact that he is the father of responsible government in Canada, and that he recommended the union of Upper and Lower Canada — an act that was officially passed on 10 February, 1841.
It is for these reasons that Richard Pound has chosen Lord Durham as his History Idol.
Pound is currently a partner in the Montreal office of Stikeman Elliott, and is included in the 2010 edition of The Best Lawyers in Canada. He was the founding Chairman of the World Anti-Doping Agency (1999–2007), and was named to Time magazine’s list of one hundred most influential people in the world for his relentless efforts to rid sport of performance-enhancing drugs.
He is also a member of the International Olympic Committee, was Chairman of the Olympic Games Study Commission, and was a director of the Vancouver Organizing Committee for the 2010 Olympic and Paralympic Winter Games.
Richard Pound
A former Olympic swimmer, Pound attended both McGill University and Concordia University, and was Chancellor of McGill University from 1999-2009. He was admitted to the bar in Quebec in 1968, and in Ontario in 1980.
In addition to the above accomplishments, Pound sits on the Board of Directors of Canada’s History.
John George Lambtom Durham is born in London, England.
Durham is elected to the British House of Commons.
Durham is raised to the British House of Lords.
Helps to draft the Representation of the People Act, otherwise known as the Reform Act, which dramatically affected the way seats were divided in the House of Commons, and increased the number of citizens who were entitled to vote.
After resigning from government, he is named ambassador to Russia and serves in the position for two years.
Durham accepts position of Governor General of Canada, and is given a specific mandate: to investigate and report on the rebellions in Upper and Lower Canada in 1837.
Durham resigned as Governor General only four months after accepting the position, but he carries out his assignment, and submits his now-famous report in early 1839. It is officially titled Report on the Affairs of British North America. The key recommendation is that colonies be governed by "responsible government."
Lord Durham dies in England of tuberculosis in July of this year.
The principles of responsible government are recognized by the British government. One year later, they are put into practice in Nova Scotia, which becomes the first colony to adopt responsible government.
History Idol: Sir Arthur Currie
General Arthur Currie
Dr. Tim Cook’s bestselling new book, The Madman and the Butcher, details the war of wills between two of Canada’s military titans. Cook is the First World War Curator at the Canadian War Museum, and a member of the Canada’s History Society board of directors. Cook sees Sir Arthur Currie as one of our greatest military leaders — a man who did what was necessary to help win a meat-grinder war, while always seeking ways to protect his troops from outright slaughter.
Listen as Dr. Cook explains why Currie is his History Idol.
About Sir Arthur Currie
The Americans have their MacArthur and Patton, the British, their “Monty.”
But when it comes to glorifying our military leaders, few Canadians would likely recognize the name their most respected general, Sir Arthur Currie. Born in 1875, near Strathroy, Ontario, Currie was a school teacher and militia member who rose quickly through the ranks during the First World War.
He wasn’t an affable, charismatic leader, but he was efficient, intelligent and an expert at getting the most out of his men. Like all men who aspire to powerful positions, he made enemies — the worst being Sam Hughes, the federal minister of milita in the Borden government. When Currie refused to promote Sam Hughes’ son, Garnet, and reward him with a key leadership position in the Canadian army, Sam Hughes vowed his revenge.
From his perch in the House of Commons, the elder Hughes launched a blistering character assassination of Currie, accusing him of butchering his men in needless battles to pad his political and military resume.
Other online extras
The National Film Board has a microsite called Images of a Forgotten War: Films of the Canadian Expeditionary Force in the Great War. Watch Sir Arthur Currie being decorated by General Orth in 1918.
History Idol: Thanadelthur
This image appeared in The Beaver, December 1952, with the caption: This Chipewyan woman might be a modern counterpart of the 'Slave Woman.' Photo: Richard Harrington.
Despite her crucial role as a translator for Hudson’s Bay Company Governor James Knight during the eighteenth century, few Canadians have heard of Thanadelthur.
Tanja Hütter joined Canada’s History in 2003, and during her first two years with the Society, she came across Thanadelthur’s story while digitizing the Beaver archive and supervising an online project called Fur Trade Stories.
Listen to Tanja tell us why Thanadelthur is her history idol.
About Thanadelthur:
The young Chipewyan woman was captured by the Cree in 1713 and enslaved for a year before escaping with another Chipewyan woman. Only Thanadelthur survived. She eventually came across the HBC York Factory Post, governed by James Knight. Thanadelthur chose to stay and work with in cooperation with Knight. The companionship worked well for both, as Thanadelthur wanted to be reunited with her family, and Knight needed a translator to help him make peace with the Cree for trading purposes.
Thanadelthur’s story was never self-documented, and the only records of her are from HBC journals, in which she is referred to as “Slave Woman” or occasionally, “Slave Woman Joan.” Her inspirational, yet generally untold story, is one of bravery and determination. Sadly, her life was cut short by illness, but her contribution to creating peace between the Cree and Chipewyan had a long-lasting impact upon both Peoples, and the HBC.
Text by Sarah Reilly
Digital version of the Thanadelthur story from the HBC comic, Tales from the Bay. Also, an article about her available on the HBC website.
More Online Extras
History Idol: Tommy Douglas
Thomas Douglas © Library and Archives Canada Source: Credit: Duncan Cameron (Canadian, 1928-1985)/Canada - Library and Archives Canada/C-036222
Here’s Margaret Conrad talking about her History Idol, Tommy Douglas.
Beating out Terry Fox, Pierre Trudeau, and Frederick Banting to be named the Greatest Canadian in a CBC poll is quite an accomplishment.
Tommy Douglas — who was at times labelled a “Red” and a “Communist” by his political opponents — won the honour largely for his belief that every Canadian deserved the right to have quality health care, regardless of their economic or social situation.
This conviction likely stemmed from his social gospel roots in Manitoba, and continued during his days as Premier of Saskatchewan and later as leader of the federal NDP.
“The Father of Medicare” saw his Medicare plan enacted in Saskatchewan in 1962 and later by the federal Pearson government in 1966. His social activism inspired many Canadians from coast to coast, including a conservative-minded history student from Nova Scotia.
Margaret Conrad is an honourary research professor at the University of New Brunswick. She became an Officer of the Order of Canada in 2004 and is a director of Canada’s History Society.
Conrad was a member of the Progressive Conservative Students Society at Acadia University in the late 1960s when she witnessed a speech given by Douglas. This experience turned her personal politics on its head. “He captured everyone in the room no matter what their political affiliation was,” she says.
She says she’ll never forget Douglas’s comments on social justice. He said, “Social justice is like taking a bath. You have to do it every day or pretty soon you start to stink.”
To Conrad, Douglas was defined by his altruism and his belief that the role of government is to help create a better society and a better Canada.
“I see him as one of the greats of Canadian history.”
— text by Neil Babaluk
Tommy Douglas is born in Falkirk, Scotland on Oct. 20, 1904. Six years later, he immigrates to Canada with his family, settling in the booming railroad city of Winnipeg.
He enters Brandon College in 1924, to study theology. Among the golden wheat fields of Western Manitoba, he meets Stanley Knowles, who becomes a life-long friend and political ally. His fellow students and professors introduce Douglas to the ideas of the social gospel. These ideas will become the keystone of his life and his politics.
With the Great Depression raging through drought-ravaged Saskatchewan, Douglas witnesses great human suffering first hand. Seeing farmers unable to afford medical care for their families, he joins the Saskatchewan Labour Party in 1932, believing he could do more as a politician than as a priest. The SLP forms the backbone for the creation of the Cooperative Commonwealth Federation.
Three years later, Douglas becomes one of the first CCF Members of Parliament, the beginning of a nine-year run as an MP. The fiery debates of Parliament give him a chance to polish his oratory skills that had served him in the pulpit. The CCF is constantly in conflict with the established Liberal and Conservative parties and Douglas dives into these debates headfirst.
With the leadership of the Saskatchewan provincial CCF vacant, Douglas returns home in 1942 to lead the party. He leads the CCF to a resounding victory in the 1944 provincial election, kicking off five terms as Premier of Saskatchewan. His government is the first social democratic government elected in North America. The opposition derides him as a communist or worse, but Douglas sets out modernize rural Saskatchewan. He brings electricity to family farms and provides a much needed expansion of health care in the province.
Tommy Douglas had long been a believer in universal health care, a belief borne out of his social gospel background and seeing farmers unable to afford health care during the Great Depression. 1959 is the year that Douglas is finally able to make his Medicare plan public. His plan covers every person in Saskatchewan with pre-paid, publicly administered health care. Saskatchewan doctors and Douglas’ political opponents attack the plan viciously. Yet by the time Medicare is adopted in Saskatchewan in 1962, these attacks dissipate. Douglas does not see Medicare implemented under his watch, as he leaves provincial politics in 1961.
By 1960, the national CCF has fallen on hard times. The party’s brain trust decides that the only way it can be saved is to develop a relationship with the Canadian labour movement. Out of the ashes of the CCF, the New Democratic Party rose in 1961 with Tommy Douglas as its national leader. Douglas leads the NDP from its birth until 1971. He continues to serve as an MP until he retires from politics in 1979. In 1966, the Pearson Liberal government enacts a national Medicare scheme whose basis is the success of Douglas’ Saskatchewan Medicare plan.
Tommy Douglas dies of cancer, in Ottawa, on Feb. 24, 1986. He is 81 years old.
On Nov. 29, 2004, Tommy Douglas is named The Greatest Canadian of all time by voters across Canada. Douglas’ social democratic legacy is widely appreciated by people from coast to coast and his legacy can be seen in the social and medical programs that serve Canadians.
History Idol: William Lyon Mackenzie King
William Lyon Mackenzie King / Yousuf Karsh, Library and Archives Canada, Arch ref. no. R613-747, e010752291.
He’s been called boring, a waffler, and a kook. But William Lyon Mackenzie King is also the longest serving Canadian prime minister. And there’s no denying that under his leadership, Canada was transformed from a minor player in the British Empire into a modern middle power, with great influence on the world stage.
He’s also the history idol of historian Jack Granatstein who gives us a list of reasons to support his position in this podcast interview with Canada's History editor-in-chief Mark Reid.
History Maker: Jack Layton
Photo Source: Matt Jiggins
This morning, NDP leader Jack Layton passed away in his home, after a lengthy battle with cancer. Layton will be most remembered for leading his party to a remarkable victory last May, winning 103 seats in the 2011 federal election and forming the Official Opposition for the first time in Canadian history.
Layton’s win signaled a new era for the social democratic party, which was formed in 1961 as a successor of the Co-operative Commonwealth Federation (CCF). Founded in the aftermath of the Great Depression, the CCF was an advocate for social and economic reform. The NDP has continued this legacy and Canada’s modern healthcare system can be credited to former party leader Tommy Douglas.
Deborah Morrison, President of Canada’s History Society, expresses her sadness at the news of Layton's passing. “Jack Layton has been a force in Canadian politics throughout most of his career. Admired for his tenacity, humanity and forthrightness, these same qualities and the results they derive were never more evident to us than in his most recent electoral campaign. Sadly, he won't have the opportunity to carry his campaign further, and a strong voice for Canada has been forever silenced.”
Layton demonstrated his unwavering spirit and leadership abilities at a young age, as an activist and community leader in his hometown of Hudson, Québec. He earned respect and gained his reputation as a strong political leader while serving on the Toronto City Council and as the Deputy Mayor of Toronto. In 2003, he entered federal politics, replacing Alexa McDonough as leader of the NDP party. Over his political career, Layton fought against a number of issues, including poverty, violence against women, AIDS and homelessness.
The news of Layton’s death spread quickly and expressions of sadness and grief flooded news reports. Interim NDP leader Nycole Turmel offered her condolences this morning saying, “New Democrats today are mourning the loss of a great Canadian. Jack was a courageous man. It was his leadership that inspired me, and so many others, to run for office. We — Members of Parliament, New Democrats and Canadians — need to pull together now and carry on his fight to make this country a better place. And we remember the Tommy Douglas quote Jack included in every email he sent: ‘Courage my friends, ‘tis never too late to build a better world.’”
Grief crossed party lines as political leaders echoed these sentiments. Here are some of the statements issued by Layton’s colleagues:
“On behalf of all Canadians, I salute Jack’s contribution to public life, a contribution that will be sorely missed. I know one thing: Jack gave his fight against cancer everything he had. Indeed, Jack never backed down from any fight.” -Prime Minister Stephen Harper
“On the Council floor Jack Layton was a skilled debater who was well known for responding to the needs of all residents of Toronto. Jack was a fighter and he will be missed in Canadian politics. On behalf of the Members of Toronto City Council, I extend our deepest condolences to Jack's wife, Olivia, to son Mike Layton who serves on Toronto City Council, to daughter Sarah Layton, and all of his family.” -Toronto Mayor Rob Ford
“On behalf of the Liberal Party of Canada and our Parliamentary Caucus, I express our deep condolences to Olivia and Jack’s family, as well as to his colleagues and friends in the New Democratic Party. He leaves a powerful legacy of a commitment to social justice in his work in Toronto as a city councillor and as a national leader.” -Liberal Leader Bob Rae
Canadians flocked to Twitter to offer their condolences. Most tributes remember and honour Layton’s passion, determination and strength:
@herohill If everyone cared as much about Canada as Jack Layton did, we'd be a much better country. RIP.
@ddbooth Jack Layton. I never agreed with your politics, but I wholeheartedly admired your passion and courage to fight for what you believed.
@MikeCrisolago With Jack Layton's passing let us not mourn what we lost, but thanks to his life and work celebrate all we've gained. RIP Jack Layton.
@Ladypolitik Canada just lost one of its scrappiest, most lionhearted AND triumphant underdogs of ALL time. #RIP, Jack Layton. We love you. #cdnpoli
@jkmksharpe Taking a moment to honour the legacy that Jack Layton leaves behind. His passion and humanity were an example to us all. RIP Jack Layton.
In a letter written just a few days before his death, Layton shared a final message with Canadians. His approach to politics, life and his battle with cancer were one and the same: “My friends, love is better than anger. Hope is better than fear. Optimism is better than despair. So let us be loving, hopeful and optimistic. And we’ll change the world.”
Layton called for MP Nycole Turmel to remain the NDP interim leader until a permanent successor is elected. Canadians will be watching anxiously as the NDP begins this new era and moves forward with Jack Layton’s vision.
The Co-operative Commonwealth Federation (CCF) is founded in Calgary in response to the Great Depression. The CCF unites progressive, socialist and labour forces committed to economic reforms and to alleviating the effects of the depression. A year later, J.S. Woodsworth is named the party’s first leader.
Canadians elect seven MPs from the CCF party, representing 8.9% of the popular vote. Future party leader and Father of Medicare, Tommy Douglas, claims one of these seats.
The New Democratic Party (NDP) is founded in Ottawa as a social democratic party. The NDP unites the CCF with organized labour unions. Tommy Douglas is the party’s first leader — a position he will hold for ten years.
A left-wing faction, Waffle, emerges from within the NDP caucus. The radical group calls for nationalization of Canadian industries, Québec's right to self-determination and an independent Canadian labour movement. They separate from the NDP party in 1972.
David Lewis is leader of the NDP and holds the balance of power in the Liberal minority government under Pierre Trudeau. Lewis is instrumental in passing a variety of legislation, including a new Elections Expenses Act, pension indexing, the creation of Petro-Canada and the Foreign Investment Review Agency.
The NDP secures forty-three seats in the House of Commons — a historic high to date.
In the early 1990s, support for the NDP falls and the party is reduced to a record low of nine seats.
After their defeat in 1993, the party engages in a rejuvenation process. In 1995, they elect a new leader, Alexa McDonough, by way of a two-step process, with a party vote followed by a national convention.
In a nation-wide direct ballot, individual and affiliated union members elect former Toronto city councilor Jack Layton as the new federal NDP leader.
Jack Layton leads the NDP party to a historic victory, obtaining 103 seats in the House of Commons and forming the Official Opposition for the first time in history.
History Spotlight: 100 Years for Canada's Navy
A member of the Royal Canadian Navy is on the lookout for enemy vessels during this World War II-era photograph. By the end of the Second World War, Canada had the third-largest navy in the world.
It was one hundred years ago, on May 4, 1910, that Canada officially launched its own navy. Throughout 2010, the Canadian Navy Centennial will celebrate the rich history and legacy of the navy and offer all Canadians the opportunity to reflect upon the service and sacrifices of the men and women who served, and continue to serve.
There will be a variety of celebrations across Canada. Some of the highlights include a travelling road show, an essay contest and a cross-country run along the Trans Canada Trail. In addition, most provincial capitals will host a variety of dinners, balls, and parades. The Royal Canadian Mint and Canada Post have also approved a naval centennial silver dollar and two stamp set.
The slogan of the centennial is: Commemorate, Celebrate, Commit. The theme is to “Bring the Navy to Canadians.” Join us as we explore 100 years of the Canadian Navy.
Co-ordinating the year’s worth of events is Captain John Pickford, project manager of the Canadian Naval Centennial. Pickford joined the Canadian Forces as a naval officer in 1974, and was appointed as project manager of the centennial in 2005. Among a lengthy list of credentials, Pickford was appointed to command the destroyer HMCS Athabascan in July of 1990, which he deployed when the Gulf War began. Pickford spoke recently with Mark Reid, Editor-in-Chief of Canada’s History about the Naval Centennial.
— Amanda Hope
Here’s Captain John Pickford talking about the Naval Centennial.
> Hear stories from naval veterans themselves, provided by Historica-Dominion Institute's The Memory Project.
> Yo ho ho... no more bottle of rum - the Canadian Navy bids farewell to the 300 year old tradition of daily rations of rum, from CBC Digital Archives.
> Dames in the Navy? A satirical radio story on women being recruited into the navy during World War II, from CBC Digital Archives.
May 4, 1910 — Canada’s navy was officially created when the Naval Service Act established the Royal Canadian Navy (RCN).
February 1, 1911 — Recruiting posters for the Royal Canadian Naval Services are issued in Post Offices across Canada for the first time.
May 14, 1914 — The Royal Naval Canadian Volunteer Reserve (RNCVR) was officially created. Annual costs were estimated at $200,000.00.
June 15, 1920 — The RNCVR is disbanded. During the period of its existence, over 6,000 men had joined.
January 15, 1923 — The Royal Canadian Naval Reserve (RCNR) was officially created. Initially, there are nine divisions, but are soon reduced to five at Charlottetown, Halifax, Quebec City, Montreal and Vancouver.
August 26, 1939 — The RCN took control of all Canadian merchant ships, and no Canadian-registered ship or merchant ship could sail without the RCN’s direction and authority.
June 6, 1944 —One-hundred-and-ten RCN ships and 10,000 Canadian navy personnel took part in the D-Day landings at Juno Beach in Normandy.
May 28, 1945 — All Canadian ships at sea turned on their running lights to signal the end of the Battle of the Atlantic at one minute past midnight. It was the longest sea battle in history, and began on Sept. 3, 1939, with the sinking of the SS Athenia — a British passenger ship — by a German submarine.
February 25, 1955 — Women are for the first time allowed to become part of the permanent force in the Royal Canadian Navy. During the Second World War, women volunteers were able to enlist and serve in “non-combatant” naval bases at home and abroad. Overall, 5,893 women volunteered for naval service during this time.
February 1, 1968 — The Canadian Armed Forces are formed from the existing Royal Canadian Navy (RCN), the Canadian Army and the Royal Canadian Air Force. Later, they are renamed the Canadian Forces. The maritime aspect was named Maritime Command (MARCOM). It is commonly referred to as the Canadian Navy today.
June 19, 2003 — The Government of Canada designated September 3 as a day to acknowledge the contribution of Navy Veterans. Sept. 3 was chosen to commemorate the sinking of the SS Athenia, which was bound for Montreal when it was sunk in 1939. There were 118 people, including 4 Canadians, killed in the attack.
May 4, 2010 — The Canadian Navy celebrates its hundredth birthday.
— Compiled by Amanda Hope
History Spotlight: British Home Children
Pictures of home children were sent to Gail Collins and Hazel Perrier who are working them into a memory quilt. Squares were received from all over the world, as many descendants have moved away from Canada.
Canada has declared 2010 the year of the British Home Child to commemorate the thousands of poverty-stricken children sent here from Britain between 1869 and 1948.
Throughout the late nineteenth century, Britain was faced with poverty, pollution, and social inequality. As a result, hundreds of thousands of people — especially children — were forced to live in horrible, slum-like conditions. These children had limited options. Many went “into service,” and toiled in workhouses or served as indentured labourers. Others lived on the streets. By the late 1800s, it was impossible to ignore how bad the living conditions had become, and organizations in both Britain and Canada decided something needed to be done.
The British Child Emigration Movement officially began on October 28, 1869, when Maria Rye — an English social reformer — brought sixty-eight children from London and Liverpool to Canada. Rye wanted to free children who were too poor to survive on their own, and provide them with opportunities they couldn’t find at home. The plan was to have younger children adopted by Canadian families, and to have older children provided with shelter and food in exchange for farming help until they were eighteen-years-old. Both the Canadian and British governments supported the program; Britain, because it reduced the costs of having to support struggling children; Canada, because it provided workers-in-training and young children that could be adopted.
Rye’s initial movement spawned a number of organizations, and over 100,000 children were sent to Canada between 1869 and 1948. In total, 150,000 children were sent to Canada and other Commonwealth countries such as Australia, New Zealand, and South Africa. Most of the children were between six- and fifteen-years-old, but some were as young as six-months-old.
Living conditions varied for home children. Some were treated very well, and found loving and caring families to adopt them. Others, however, were faced with a variety of circumstances not unlike those they left behind in Britain. Education suffered horribly. Many farming families saw the home children as free labour that would take up the slack created when their own children left home to attend school. Many home children grew up with limited or no education. And while most of the children were called orphans, two-thirds of them had a parent in Britain. Most parents were just too poor to keep them.
Prime Minister Gordon Brown issued an apology to home children on Feb. 24, 2010. Brown also met with former home children to listen to their stories first-hand. His apology followed a similar one from Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd on Nov. 16, 2009. Canada has proclaimed 2010 the Year of the British Home Child, and various efforts are being taken to ensure the past is not forgotten. Websites and organizations are trying to gather as much information about home children as possible, and are trying to help families trace their origins and ancestors. The Canadian Post Office will issue an honorary stamp in October, and there are plans for a Special Anthology Book and Memory Quilt.
Do you know a Home Child or are you looking for one?
- Follow our genealogy group!
- Listen to a podcast with the grandchild of Barnardo children.
- BritishHomeChildren.org
The official 2010-Year of the British Home Child in Canada website. It contains information about the various projects taking place this year, and includes many stories of past home children.
- Collections Canada
Search for a home child that came to Canada between 1869-1930 at the Library and Archives Canada database.
- Canadian Centre for Home Children
The Canadian Centre for Home Children was opened in 1999. It is located in Cavendish, PEI, the home of world famous orphan, Anne of Green Gables. The Centre’s mission is to obtain information about home children for their descendants.
- Our Roots
Our Roots is a site dedicated to local Canadian histories. It’s a good place to search if someone is trying to track down information about their family’s past.
- TheShipsList.com
Check past ship lists to find when a home child came to Canada.
History Spotlight: Canada’s First Railway
Artist J.D. Kelly’s painting of first railway.
On July 21, 1836, cheers filled the air as a wood-burning steam locomotive chugged out of La Prairie, Quebec, pulling the first train on the first public railroad in Canada.
Thus began this country’s longstanding love affair with ribbons of steel. The creation of a railroad network that would eventually reach from the Atlantic to the Pacific, opening up vast regions to settlement and virtually building Canada, began with the Champlain and Saint Lawrence Railroad.
Construction for the twenty-five-kilometre line began January 1835 and ran between La Prairie on the St. Lawrence River and Saint-Jean (then called St. John) on the Richelieu River. It served as a way for those travelling between Montreal and New York to avoid a bumpy stagecoach journey that bypassed a series of difficult rapids on the Richelieu. At Saint-Jean, passengers transferred to a steamer that carried them south to New York City via Lake Champlain and the Hudson River.
Rail travel was still very new. The world’s first intercity rail line had opened just six years earlier in England, connecting Liverpool and Manchester. The early rails were made of wood topped with thin strips of iron. The locomotive for Canada’s first train was a Dorchester, built in Newcastle, England. Nicknamed “Iron Kitten” for its skittish behaviour, the Dorchester’s first test runs were held at night to avoid frightening people.
Its first official run was held with great fanfare. The locomotive pulled two first-class coaches carrying thirty-two dignitaries, including Lord Gosford, the governor general of Lower Canada. A second train pulled by a team of horses followed close behind. Two hours later, the trains arrived in St. John to a rousing welcome.
The C & SL proved very popular with passengers, who embraced the new mode of transport with reckless abandon — they walked on the roofs of the coaches while they were in motion and smuggled dogs into first class. Charles Dickens was one of its more famous passengers. However, the rail line was little used by freight haulers, who found it too expensive.
Nevertheless, the construction of more rail lines in all directions soon followed, ushering in a period of unprecedented growth in Canada. The driving of the last spike at Craigellachie, B.C., on November 7, 1885 marked the completion of a coast-to-coast transportation line that served to unite the young country once and for all.
Although highways and air travel have largely displaced the importance of transcontinental railroads, rail continues to be a regular mode of travel for commuters in places like the Greater Toronto Area, where the Go Train is a vital means of transportation between cities.
The railway remains a vibrant symbol of Canadian identity that is much celebrated by artists, musicians, and hobbyists.
— Text by Nelle Oosterom, Senior Editor of Canada’s History.
Other Online Extras:
Portrait Gallery: Driving the Nation: The Last Spike and Faces of the CPR
YouTube: Gordon Lightfoot, Canadian Railroad Trilogy
YouTube: Canadian Steam Trains, mini documentary
History Spotlight: Canadian Country Legends
When it comes to singing lonesome songs of heart and heartache, Canadian crooners are more than a match for their American neighbours.
The following musicians represent only a smattering of the country music talent Canada has produced. For a timeline of Canadian country music, and more video clips, see our article Country in Canada.
Don Messer & his Islanders
Don Messer formed the Islanders in 1939 and this band went strong until the 1960s. One of the defining characteristics of the band was Messer’s violin playing and the extensive backing band, which sometimes consisted of up to seventeen people. He performed with Charlie Chamberlain and Marg Osburne for almost his entire career, as they were the lead singers of the Islanders, and they become the three most identifiable performers of the group. During the 1960s, Messer had his own show on CBC, “Don Messer’s Jubilee,” which consisted of the band playing with a guest performer for each half-hour slot. This introduced new country performers to the viewers of CBC and gave country-wide recognition to such singers like Stompin' Tom Connors and Catherine McKinnon.
Wilf Carter
Carter has been called the father of Canadian country music because he was the first full-fledged country music full star. He was also known as Montana Slim. A talented singer- songwriter, Carter wrote hundreds of songs in the country/folk genre and also introduced yodeling to the public, and included it in many of his songs. During the 1940s, Carter was in a severe car accident and did not perform for nine years. He continued to release music throughout this hiatus, however, and in 1949, he returned to the stage. Carter performed his last tour in 1993, when he was eighty-nine years old. He died three years later.
Tommy Hunter
Tommy Hunter is a Canadian country singer who created his own radio show in 1960s, and turned it into a successful television variety show that ran until 1992. He is known as Canada’s Country Gentleman. “The Tommy Hunter Show” featured guest performers on a regular basis such as Donna and LeRoy Anderson, Al Cherny, as well as well known guests like Anne Murray and American stars like Garth Brooks and the Judds. At the age of thirteen — while still called Eilleen Twain — Shania Twain appeared on Hunter’s show. Hunter himself had a couple of hit singles; “Cup of Disgrace,” “Battle of the Little Big Horn,” and “Wait for Sunday” were popular songs for him. He has performed at the Grand Ole Opry and still travels and performs shows on a regular basis.
Stompin' Tom Connors
Charles Thomas Connors, otherwise known as Stompin’ Tom Connors, was known for stomping his left foot in order to keep rhythm while playing the guitar. One of his most famous songs, “The Hockey Song,” is played in Canadian hockey rinks all over the country. Most of Connor’s songs are written about real life events or people. His national hits such as “Big Joe Mufferaw,” “Luke’s Guitar” and “The Bridge Came Tumbling Down” were all based on events or people that influenced Stompin’ Tom. He was inducted into the Canadian Country Music Hall of Fame in 1993, but refused to accept the honour, and he also received a SOCAN National Achievement Award for songwriting in 1999.
Hank Snow
Snow is acknowledged as a father of Canadian country music, along with Wilf Carter. However, Snow spent a fair amount of his career in the United States developing his career and performing with the likes of Willie Nelson and mentoring Elvis Presley. He even became a regular performer on the Grand Ole’ Opry in Nashville, and this became his adopted hometown. “I’m Movin On” was one of his most famous songs. He charted almost eighty-five songs on Billboard during his career, and around twenty-five reached top five positions, including number one. Later on in his career, Snow returned to Canada and toured with Wilf Carter in 1981, and returned periodically after. He has since been inducted into the Juno Hall of Fame, CCMA Hall of Fame, and the Canadian Songwriters Hall of Fame.
Anne Murray
Anne Murray is one of Canada’s most established and celebrated singers. She has won countless Junos and three Canadian Country Music Awards and also has success internationally with four Grammys and three Country Music Awards. Anne started on “Singalong Jubilee,” a CBC variety show in the 1960s. From there, Anne recorded her first album, “What About Me,” and soon she recorded “This Way is My Way,” which contained her breakout hit “Snowbird.” In 1997, Anne Murray released a very popular album of duets: “Anne Murray Duets: Friends & Legends.”
Shania Twain
Shania Twain, born Eilleen Twain, was born in Timmins, Ontario, and grew up in a low-income family. Because of her money situation, Shania began to sing at clubs and bars at around the age of thirteen to help support her family. Shania performed on “The Tommy Hunter Show” when she was thirteen, and eventually made it to Nashville where she started writing and recording songs. In 1993, she released her first CD, Shania Twain, which did not reach much commercial success. In 1995, she released “The Woman in Me,” which became her breakthrough album. She had four number one hits from this CD and she was well on her way to becoming the star that she would become. “Come On Over” and “UP!” were her next two albums, and these solidified her in both country and pop. In 1999 she was named Entertainer of the Year by the Academy of Country Music and the Country Music Association. Shania is now creating a show for Oprah’s network OWN, which will launch in 2011.
History Spotlight: Pierre and Margaret Trudeau - Canada's Royal Couple
As paparazzi culture rose in the '70s, Pierre and Margaret Trudeau became Canada's "royal couple."
Watch Margaret Trudeau’s interview with Toronto Star senior writer, Susan Delacourt. November 10, 2010 at Toronto Reference Library. This clip is part 1 of 8, and an interview about Margaret’s latest book Changing My Mind. The next seven clips should pop up in succession. To get past introduction, move cursor to 4 minute, 10 second mark.
Pierre Elliot Trudeau was a forty-eight-year-old bachelor when he became the Prime Minister of Canada in 1968. A charismatic, youthful Liberal, Trudeau quickly captured the attention of Canadians. As women, young and old, fell in love with him and their brothers and husbands came to idolize him, their infatuation with Trudeau became known as Trudeaumania. Pierre Trudeau was a rock star of Canadian politics. In 1971, the hearts of many Canadian women shattered upon the announcement that Trudeau had married twenty-two-year-old ‘flower child’, Margaret Sinclair.
The couple met in 1967 while Trudeau and Sinclair were vacationing separately in Tahiti. Sinclair told her mother she was not interested in Trudeau after their first meeting, yet less than a year later Trudeau’s persistence and charm won out and the two began dating. The couple appeared happy and in love, and on March 4, 1971, Sinclair and Trudeau were secretly married.
During the early stages of their thirteen-year marriage, Trudeau and Sinclair had three children, all boys. The eldest, Justin, was born on December 25, 1971. Two years later, to the day, Justin was followed by Alexander (Sasha). On October 2, 1975, Sinclair gave birth to the couples’ third son, Michel.
Trudeau and Sinclair’s romance materialized at a time when the private lives of politicians and celebrities first became seriously targeted by the media. The combination of Trudeau’s charismatic personality mixed with Sinclair’s beauty and youth made the newlyweds a popular item at the newsstands. After only a few years of marriage however, the fairytale romance began to fall apart. It appeared that Sinclair’s youthful free spirit could not be tamed by the title “First Lady,” and her behaviour did not fit well with the expectations associated with her new title. It was not until decades later that Sinclair was diagnosed with manic depression, triggered by the stresses of life in the spotlight.
During the 1970s, the media was obsessed with Sinclair and Canadians were infatuated with learning about her personal life. The paparazzi followed her every move. Pictures documented Sinclair relentlessly when she frequented Manhattan’s Studio 54 dance club, and were accompanied by rumours of affairs. When Trudeau lost his majority government in the 1979 election, the media was just as interested in Sinclair’s whereabouts as it was with the election results. All of Canada knew the next day that Sinclair had not been at Trudeau’s side because she was off partying with the Rolling Stones.
The couple made efforts to save the marriage but were unable to do so, and in 1984 they were officially divorced. The two remained friendly and both were involved in raising their children. When Pierre Trudeau died in 2000, two years after son Michel was killed in an avalanche, Sinclair attended the funeral with sons Justin and Alexander. Over the last decade, Sinclair gained control over her depression and in 2010 published Changing My Mind, a book that shares her own story of struggle with bi-polar disorder and is dedicated to helping others learn to live with a mental illness.
More Online Extensions
1. Maggie and Pierre are Married in Secret [CBC — Broadcast: March 5, 1971]
The Trudeaumania bubble bursts as Canada’s most eligible bachelor announces he has secretly married Margaret Sinclair, a woman 28 years younger. Only 12 people attended the Vancouver ceremony. The Sinclairs believed they were gathering for a family portrait. Trudeau’s aides thought the couple was skiing. CBC Radio talks about the wedding that started a new chapter for Trudeau — the family man.
2. The Private Life of Prime Minister Pierre Elliot Trudeau (courtesy of Watchmojo.com)
Text written by Sarah Reilly, a student-intern at Canada’s History, who is starting the University of Winnipeg – University of Manitoba Joint Master’s Program next fall.
History Spotlight: Sir Wilfrid Laurier
Sir Wilfrid Laurier / George Grantham Bain coll., Library of Congress.
Who was the man who became Canada’s seventh prime minister?
Roy MacSkimming, author of the recently published Laurier in Love, shared his thoughts about the man with Assistant Editor Bev Tallon in this podcast (Duration: 15 minutes, 42 seconds).
Wilfrid Laurier was born in 1841 at St. Lin, Quebec of humble beginnings. The son of a farmer, he was sent to the nearby town of new Glasgow at a young age to learn English. After seven years at a Roman Catholic college, Laurier studied law at McGill University. He delivered the valedictory address for his class in 1864 and made his first of many speeches appealing for sympathy and union between the French and English. He embarked on a law career in Montreal, however ill health, which he believed to be tuberculosis but turned out to be chronic bronchitis, caused him to move in 1866. He lived first in L’Avenir, then Victoriaville, Quebec, where in 1867 he opened a law firm — the start of a thirty year practice. As a supporter of the Liberal party or “parti rouge,” Laurier took the job of editor of Le Défricheur, opposing the terms of Confederation and defending Liberal policies until the paper’s demise that year.
In 1868 he married Zoe Lafontaine. In Arthabaska Regional County he was elected alderman, mayor, and in 1881, county warden. The couple built a large house in the municipality’s seat, Victoriaville, in 1878. There they became part of the local society until Laurier’s political career necessitated moving to Ottawa in 1897. The Laurier’s former residence was also the home of Prime Minister Mackenzie and is now being used as a museum.
Photo: Sir Wilfrid and Lady Zoë Laurier going to the Parliamentary luncheon in London, England, 1907. / Library and Archives Canada/Joseph Schull fonds/C-033388
In 1871 Laurier won a seat as a liberal member, as was the Minister of Inland Revenue for one year. He resigned in 1874 and was elected to the House of Commons the same year. Although he was re-elected in Québec-Est, he was less interested in political debate due to his party’s electoral defeats in 1878 and 1882. However, he energetically defended Louis Riel’s cause and the unification of the French and English in Canada. When Liberal leader Edward Blake resigned in 1887, Laurier succeeded him.
In 1896, after eighteen years with a Conservative government the Liberals won, and Laurier became the first francophone prime minister of Canada. After defeating Charles Tupper in 1896 he compromised on the Manitoba Schools Question — the issue of education rights of the Catholic minority in Manitoba — with the Laurier-Greenway agreement, which said religious instruction could be obtained during the last half-hour of the school day in a language other than English. He also tackled the creation of the Yukon Territory in 1898, Canada’s participation in the South African War (1899 – 1902), and the Alaska Boundary Dispute in 1903.
Wilfrid Laurier speech — ideas on immigrants and being a Canadian in 1907. Photo credit: unknown.
During his second term in 1903, Laurier revealed a decision to construct a second transcontinental railway, with the Grand Trunk Pacific constructing a line from Winnipeg westward and the government building the National Transcontinental section from Moncton and Quebec to Winnipeg.
Laurier saw through the creation of two new provinces in 1905 — Saskatchewan and Alberta — where he once again gave in to the popular belief that the Catholic minority should not have the right to separate schools. In 1910-11 he passed two more unpopular bills: the Naval Service Act, establishing a Canadian navy, and a reciprocity bill, providing free trade and reduced duty on several natural resources to the United States. This sealed his political defeat as prime minister. He continued to lead the Liberal party but division developed due to Laurier’s support of voluntary enlistment rather than conscription in WWI.
Laurier House / Peregrine981.
He died in February 1919, at the age of seventy-eight, after serving for forty-five years in the House of Commons. Fifty thousand people lined the streets of Ottawa for his funeral procession, which was lead by dignitaries and political officials. It was to become one of the first public events in Canada to be preserved on film.
– Text by Beverley Tallon
Wilfrid Laurier was born on November 20.
Laurier graduates with a law degree from McGill University on October 3.
Laurier begins his political career as a member of the Legislative Assembly of Quebec.
Laurier is elected to the House of Commons and appointed Minister of Inland Revenue in 1877.
Laurier is elected Prime Minister of Canada, a position he will hold for fifteen years, the longest undefeated mandate in Canadian history. Also: Laurier and Manitoba Premier Thomas Greenway create compromise legislation on The Manitoba Schools Question –– Catholics in Manitoba are permitted to have a Catholic education in public schools on a school-to-school basis and be taught in French (or other language) if there is a minimum of 10 students who speak that language. Re-establishment of a Catholic school board but no government funding.
Prime Minister Laurier represents Canada at Queen Victoria’s diamond jubilee and receives a knighthood.
Second Boer War –– Laurier opposes sending the Militia to assist a British colonial war, proposing a volunteer component only.
Laurier creates the Railway Bill, which allows for the development of two more transcontinental railways.
1905: Laurier oversees the creation of two new provinces — Saskatchewan and Alberta.
Laurier proposes the Naval Service Act. The bill is passed and Laurier creates the Royal Canadian Navy.
Sir Wilfrid Laurier has a stroke and dies on February 17 at the age of seventy-seven.
History Spotlight: The Last Best West
Clifford Sifton, Minister of the Interior (1896-1905)
The “Last Best West” was a program developed through the Immigration Branch of the Canadian Department of the Interior from 1896 until the First World War, which produced brochures, pamphlets, and atlases that were distributed in the United States and Great Britain to encourage farmers to settle in western Canada.
Beverley Tallon, Editorial Assistant at Canada’s History talks to Dr Laura Detre, an instructor of history at Washington & Jefferson University, Washington, Pennsylvania, about the subject.
More online extras
From the Museum of Civilization
Browse through this online exhibit called Advertising for Immigrants to Western Canada, 1870–1930 (be sure to scroll all the way down).
From the National Film Board of Canada: Drylanders (1962)
Director: Don Haldane. This epic drama looks at the opening of the Canadian West and the drought that led to the Depression in the Thirties. It is the saga of a family who left Eastern Canada to stake their future in the Prairies. Principle roles are played by Frances Hyland and James Douglas. For more background information about this film, please visit the NFB.ca blog.
From the National Film Board of Canada: Strangers at the Door (1977)
Director: John Howe. The harrowing story of an immigrant family in the New World. On arrival in Canada, their hopes for a better life were dashed when immigration officials refused to grant entry to their daughter. During a routine medical examination it was found that Kasia had contracted an infectious eye disease. She is separated from her family and sent back to Europe alone.
To see more films, visit NFB.ca.
History Spotlight: The Underground Railroad
Reverend Josiah Henson escaped to Upper Canada with his family in 1830. His memoirs inspired Harriet Beecher Stowe's Uncle Tom's Cabin.*
April 2011 marked the 150th anniversary of the start of the American Civil War, a conflict enmeshed with the issue of slavery. Citizens of what soon became Canada were long involved in aiding fugitive slaves escape slave-holding southern states via the Underground Railroad.
In the mid-1800s, a hidden network of men and women, white and black, worked with escaped slaves to help them to freedom in the northern U.S. and Canada. Though scholars warn that tales of the Underground Railroad have been exaggerated in popular history (between 60,000 and 75,000), an estimated 30,000 slaves made it to Canada in this way.
While Canadians often pride themselves on their historical support of the more progressive anti-slavery Union, British support for the North was never a given. And before we Canadians go overboard patting ourselves on the back for coming to the rescue of fugitive slaves, a University of Winnipeg prof reminds us slaves once escaped from British North American colonies into the United States.
“It was not at all clear at the beginning that Great Britain and other European nations would shun the Confederacy,” said U of W history professor Garin Burbank.
In the early days of the North-South conflict, both sides were vying for support from Britain and other European powers. And while abolitionists were hard at work denouncing the evils of slavery, Britain had only relinquished its ties to the practice a few decades earlier. Further, many European nations depended on the cotton produced by southern slave states. Quite the predicament.
Some English Quebecers felt they could relate to wealthy Southern planters and had Confederate sympathies, Burbank said.
“Southerners often spent their summers in Quebec, Montreal and the eastern townships in order to escape the heat in the south,” he said. “There were some English in Montreal who believed that the southern planters were sort of an American equivalent of British aristocrats, so there was at least some mild sympathy for the South in Montreal.”
But when the Emancipation Proclamation, which declared all slaves in any of the rebellious Confederate states were free, came into play, Britain had to choose sides for good.
“Once the Lincoln cabinet issued the Emancipation Proclamation, then it became virtually impossible for any European power to say they were now going to recognize a confederacy that still supported human slavery,” Burbank said.
And when it comes to taking pride in leading slaves to freedom, some scholars say Canada’s not as deserving as popular legend implies. Historians Larry Gara and Robin Winks contend the image of the underground railroad promoted by abolitionists and their descendents has been greatly overplayed. Gara says numbers of slaves helped through the railroad have been exaggerated, and a large amount of fugitives actually escaped of their own accord.
In fact, slaves once escaped south from British North American colonies into the United States, Burbank said. Loyalists from southern colonies brought slaves to New Brunswick and Nova Scotia. He said there were instances where slaves escaped south to Vermont, which had abolished slavery by the 1790s, while British colonies wouldn’t abolish the practice until the 1830s.
When it comes to taking sides, it seems Canada’s role in the American Civil War was more complicated than some would like to believe.
Text by Sandy Klowak; *image courtesy of Uncle Tom's Cabin Historic Site.
Other online extensions:
History Spotlight: Wayne Gretzky
The Great One
Born in Brantford, Ontario, on January 26, 1961, hockey star Wayne Gretzky celebrates his fiftieth birthday this year.
Gretzky first started skating at the age of two years and ten months, at his paternal grandparent’s farm. His father Walter Gretzky made the family a back yard rink, nicknamed the “Wally Coliseum.” Along with his brothers, Keith, Brent, and Glen, his father taught them how to follow the puck. The sport was a family affair with his mother and sister Kim joining in and all gathering around the television to watch Hockey Night in Canada. It soon became apparent that in spite of his stature Wayne excelled and exceeded others of his age and older.
Gretzky played on his first team at the age of six with a group of ten-year-olds. It was then that he started his trademark of tucking his sweater into the right side of his pants, as the jersey was far too big for him. By age ten he had scored 378 goals and 139 assists in one season with the Brantford Nadrofsky Steelers. By thirteen he had scored well over one thousand goals. All of the attention made young Wayne unpopular with his teammates and their parents. When Gretzky was fourteen, his parents challenged the Canadian Amateur Hockey Association for the right for him to play elsewhere.
His family won and Gretzky moved to Toronto to play Junior B hockey with the Toronto Nationals, earning him Rookie of the Year honours in 1975-76, with 60 points in 28 games. The next year he made 72 points in 32 games with the Seneca Nationals, played three games with the Peterborough Petes and signed with his first agent, Bob Behnke.
In 1977 the sixteen-year-old Gretzky was selected third pick with the Sault Ste. Marie Greyhounds. With the team’s heavy traveling schedule, the young Gretzky was required to live with a local family in the northern Ontario city. It was with the Greyhounds that he first wore the number 99 on his jersey. He had wanted to wear number 9 for his hockey hero Gordie Howe; however, it was already taken by his teammate Brian Gualzazzo. That year he won Rookie of the Year and Most Sportsmanlike awards at the major junior level.
Wayne Gretzky’s career highlights:
World Hockey Association (WHA) – 1978-1979
- Indianapolis Racers (1978-1979)
- Edmonton Oilers (1978-1979)
National Hockey League (NHL) 1979-1999
- Edmonton Oilers (1979-1988)
- Los Angeles Kings (1988-1996)
- St. Louis Blues (1996)
- New York Rangers (1996-1999)
Gretzky’s final game of his professional career was played at Madison Square Garden on April 18, 1999, at the age of thirty-eight. His team, the New York Rangers, lost to the Pittsburgh Penguins 2–1 in overtime.
But winning was not everything to Gretzky, as was apparent in his comment to Canadian sports journalist Scott Morrison: “My last game in New York was my greatest day in hockey … Everything you enjoy about the sport of hockey as a kid, driving to practice with mom and dad, driving to the game with mom and dad, looking at the stands and seeing your mom and dad and your fiends, that all came together in that last game in New York.”
International performance:
- Bronze medal – World Junior Championships, Team Canada (1978)
- Silver medal – Canada Cup, Team Canada (1981)
- Bronze medal – World Championships, Team Canada (1982)
- Gold – Canada Cup, Team Canada (1984)
- Rendez-vous ’87, NHL All-Stars (1987 – medal n/a)
- Gold – Canada Cup, Team Canada (1987)
- Gold – Canada Cup, Team Canada (1991)
- Silver – World Cup, Team Canada (1996)
- Winter Olympics – Team Canada (1998 - no medal)
Gretzky retired from international play holding the records for most goals (20), most assists (28), and most overall points (48) in Best-on-best hockey.
In the 2010 Winter Olympics in Vancouver, Gretzky was named Special Advisor to the Canada men’s national ice hockey team and the final torchbearer of the games.
On November 22, 2003, Gretzky put on his skates to help celebrate the Edmonton Oiler’s 25th anniversary as an NHL team. Known as the Heritage Classic, it was the first NHL game to be play outdoors. The Mega Stars game heralded the occasion, where Gretzky and many of his Oiler teammates played against a group of retired Montreal Canadiens to a crowd of 57,167. Several million viewers also watched the game on television. The Edmonton team beat the Megastars 2–0.
Online extras
Official website for Wayne Gretzky
ESPN
CBC digital archives
Legends of hockey
Read “99 Great Moments” of Wayne Gretzky’s career
Holiday films from the National Film Board
The National Film Board of Canada's website has collected six holiday films which are available for online viewing and/or downloading: The Great Toy Robbery, Noël Noël, Christmas Cracker, An Old Box, and Teach Me to Dance.
The holidays would not be complete without the Canadian classic The Sweater, the tale of a boy in 1949 who idolizes Maurice Richard and the Canadiens. His world crashes around him when Eaton's sends him a Toronto Maple Leafs hockey sweater instead of the Montreal Canadiens jersey and his mother refuses to return it.
The Memory Project: J.A. Rene Brunette
J.A. René Brunette in uniform
Here is J.A. René Brunette speaking about his experiences in the Royal Canadian Navy in World War II. You can also visit The Memory Project for more stories.
Translation of Audio Transcript
I was French-speaking and we knew a little bit of English but not a lot, eh! I always participated in a lot of things, so English... At our house, we read newspapers like Le Devoir and Le Journal that existed during that time. So we knew a bit of English, and my father always worked in French and English so we had a general idea. But in my line of work, I would say that it was often the English-speaking people who gave me a chance.
When I boarded the ship, there were two gentleman from Ottawa, one named Bonham and one named Burke. We were delegated to that ship, and then the coxswain, who was the assistant officer and in charge of the all of the people, he approached me and he said, “If you have any trouble who those English, you tell me Brunette!” But he was English-speaking himself, his last name was Cunningham and he was from Dorval.
They sent us to Sydney, Nova Scotia to board our ship. When we got there, we had to sleep in a big garage that had beds set up on benches. The next morning when we got up and looked outside, there was a big ship called a corvette. We didn't even know what that was! So we boarded the ship; we were three young men from Ottawa who were assigned to that ship.
The corvette was called HMCS Hepatica. It was an English name, since the ship was based on a style of ship from England that served the coasts, so it wasn't very wide. It was 30 feet wide and 200 feet long and there were over 270 people aboard. So it was a bit cramped! There was a device called sonar, which was a device placed on the bottom of the ship. It was something like a barrel under the ship which sent frequencies underwater and received them back four times faster than they were sent out, so that we could detect a whale or a submarine or an old shipwreck or anything like that, or rocks or fish. It was very handy.
It was early on during the war, and all the supply ships and things like that operated on their own. So when the submarines detected them one by one, they had a chance to shoot. So Mr. Churchill [the Prime Minister of Great Britain] decided that no ship should ever go out alone from any give place; they had to go out together in a convoys. If we hadn't have been able to bring over the munitions, the food supplies, things like that, the transport of the troups, then England... Because it was Germans who were in the submarines.
So first off, the submarines: after they invaded France, they were building submarines in Brest off the Atlantic, that was the starting point. So they were banding together in groups. Sometimes there were up to 20 submarines that banded together in a group to try and stop our convoys. Then us, the convoys, we managed to slip out to protect our ships, even though we had lost a lot of supply ships by then, we slipped out to protect them.
Often people say that it was the Air Force that won the battle, but in our opinion, it was us, the marines and the Navy who helped a lot and who helped to save England. Because if we hadn't have been able to bring over the food supplies, the munitions, the shells and and other things like that, then the Air Force wouldn't have been able to move. Oil, gas, things like that; we provided the support. In my opinion, we were the backbone of the entire organization. Some of the frigates were built in Canada and they were given the names of cities as often as possible. They were a bit bigger and faster than the other ships.
The HMCS La Hulloise was a frigate that was a bit bigger and faster and it had 150 passengers aboard. It was more modern and was equipped with everything imaginable; sonar and we even had something new, a grenade called the “hedgehog” [an anti-submarine weapon]. It was installed on the ship's front deck, in front of both canons, and it could launch. It was about 20 inches long and 3 inches in diameter, and it could launch grenades ahead at submarines when they were close.
So we had just left the group, the convoy, and we were escorting ships to various different cities such as Liverpool and Southampton and places like that. So were were three ships together, two others and us, and we received an order to go patrol the Irish sea around the northwest coast of Ireland. So we departed northwards and at around 11 o'clock at night, the sonar picked up something.
No, I am sorry, I mean the radar picked up something. It indicated that there was a submarine ahead of us. We didn't think that it could be possible. We were so close to the coast that we could see the red lights on the buoys, like on the Ottawa river. We were so close to land. The captain said, “How could it be?” And then the sonar repeated its signal that there was a submarine ahead of us.
So then we did something that we were never supposed to do during a time of war, but the captain took a chance — we approached and the captain turned on a huge spotlight so that we could clearly see the submarine. When it saw us, and the light from spotlight, it started to descend — to “crash” you could say — to descend quickly to the bottom of the ocean or the bay, I mean the bay. So we relayed the coordinates to the two other boats that were with us and we started dropping charges/torpedoes on them. After a few minutes, say within 10 minutes of having started our attack, we saw some flotsam come up through the water. I would say that the attack lasted about 40 minutes all in all and then we started patrolling the waters again until the following morning.
The next day, we went back to see if there were any survivors and there were none. There were 40 dead marines. We even picked up a notebook that included a letter which a young marine was undoubtedly writing to his mother... He thought that he would be home for Easter. It was March 8th. I will never forget that date since my mother's birthday is the following day. A lot of us cried and prayed for them, we were all under a lot of pressure. We figured out that there were 44 men aboard and it was very touching, very touching.
Lea's Landslide
The 1930s were a tough time to be in politics. When the Great Depression set in, Canadians were among the hardest hit and many were forced into a life of poverty — a result of falling wages, high unemployment rates, and plummeting prices on exports. Helpless in the face of a worldwide crisis, Canadians looked to the government for help. When governments proved unable to restore the faltering economy or provide enough relief, voters didn’t hesitate to give the job to a new leader. After all, they had nothing to lose. Throughout the 1930s, Canadian governments at all levels were frequently turned over, as voters tried to find someone who could to alleviate the effects of the depression. It’s in this context that we look at Prince Edward Island’s 1935 election and Walter Lea’s unprecedented political victory.
Walter Lea was born on February 10, 1874 in Tryon, Prince Edward Island. After a modest upbringing and education, he went on to manage the family farm. Lea always had an interest in politics and in 1915 he was elected to the House of Assembly. A few years later, he was reelected and named Commissioner of Agriculture.
When Premier Saunders joined the Supreme Court in 1930, Walter Lea was called on to form the Liberal government. He became the first farmer-Premier and undertook many initiatives to improve and diversify the island’s agricultural industry. However, his reign was short-lived and lasted just over a year. In 1931, his government was defeated when the Conservatives won 28 of the island’s 30 seats. Lea assumed the seat of Leader of the Opposition.
Four years later, Prince Edward Islanders were at the polls again. Lea was still vying to become Premier, although he was now suffering from poor health. He directed his campaign from a hospital bed for six weeks, and then from his home for the remainder of the election. He made only one public appearance during the entire campaign.
The circumstances of Lea’s campaign made the election results all the more astounding. When the votes were counted, Lea’s Liberals had swept the province. It was the first time in the history of the British Commonwealth that a party won every political seat and was left without an opposition in the House. Members of the Liberal party unofficially took on the role of opposition, providing voices of criticism to the government. In addition to assuming his duties as Premier, Lea took on the portfolios of Agriculture and Provincial Secretary.
Newspapers across the country carried the story of Lea’s victory, which reflected a broader change in Canadian provincial politics. When the Great Depression hit, many Canadian provinces elected Conservative governments with the hope that they would be able to control the economic crisis. However, by the mid-1930s, little had been done to alleviate the effects of the depression and voters began to elect new governments. Prince Edward Island was the last of six provinces to replace their Conservative government with a Liberal one. Just three months later, a similar change played out on the federal stage, as Mackenzie King’s Liberal party defeated the Conservative government.
Walter Lea’s victory was an unprecedented feat that was not be repeated until 1987, when Frank McKenna won all fifty-nine seats in New Brunswick. In the context of the Great Depression, Lea’s landslide win indicated that the people of Prince Edward Island, like the rest of their fellow Canadians, were ready for a change. Sadly, Walter Lea passed away a few months after his historic win. However, regardless of who was in charge, it seems that no government could stop the depression and Canada’s economy didn’t improve until the outbreak of the Second World War.
Legal Battle centres on Beaver article
The "Caledonia," the ship at the heart of a dispute in New York state.
Does The Beaver magazine hold the key to a legal battle in New York State? Randy Boswell reported yesterday on the legal battle to recover a shipwreck at the bottom of Lake Erie. Part of the legal battle centres on an article in the Beaver magazine from 1934. Read the article and the judge for yourself. Is the ship at the bottom of Lake Erie the Caledonia?
The Memory Project: Alphonse Martel
Alphonse Martel (c) The Memory Project
Alphonse Martel describes his experience as an office clerk during the Korean War. You can hear more stories when you visit The Memory Project.
This podcast is only available in French.
Audio translation
First off, to start, when we arrived in Seoul (in the fall of 1952, as reinforcement for the 1st Battalion of the Royal 22nd Regiment), it was all bombed out. But I didn’t see the city because I was there for perhaps an hour or two with the other people who I was with. We had joined up with the 1st Battalion right away; we went right away into the hills. We had company camps, and we were all placed on different hills. That’s why we recognized the people; we weren’t together, but we were. We were just spread out a bit. The people held together. The Company A was together, the Company B was together, the Company C was together. When I arrived in Korea, evidently, as I was the major’s clerk, I had my rifle, my .303, with me (Lee-Enfield No. 4 Mk. 1 .303 calibre British rifle). I also had my typewriter with me, because I used it to write.
I was walking slowly up the hill when I was told: “You’re going to stay in the same shelter as sergeant-major Dussault.” (Herménégilde Dussault, a veteran of the Fusiliers Mont-Royal, who had participated in the raid of Dieppe in August 1942). Perfect, so I went. In the evening when it was time to eat supper, the first few hours that we were there and in general when we went there for the first time, we definitely made jokes when we were in Tokyo. But when we got there, we didn’t have any war experience. We weren’t familiar with that. I remember that the Chinese were bombing us often. They shot at us often, every day. A lot of shells; maybe four, five, 10 shells a day, all the time. I took note of that in an agenda. I didn’t eat supper that night because I was scared.
When I went to exit my shelter, I heard: “Chouuu!” And then an explosion! Damn! What’s going on here? We didn’t have experience with a shell exploding like that. The people who had been there for a certain number of months had told me: “Don’t worry Martel. When you hear it, that means that it’s already gone by.” So we started gaining experience. When we heard another one going by, we didn’t throw ourselves on the ground. We knew that it wouldn’t touch us. They went by so fast, so fast.
That was the beginning. We started to be scared. Sometimes, even after several weeks, there were evenings where there wasn’t any terrible fighting, but people died anyway. Like us, in our battalion, there were 100 in the three battalions. We had 115 people (soldiers from the Royal 22nd Regiment who died during the Korean War). That’s a lot of people. In my own battalion, the first battalion, forty or so of our people died. That’s for sure, when some of our friends died like that… We would say: “Where is so-and-so?” And they would reply: “You didn’t hear? How come? He died yesterday.”
Skirmishes took place and there were patrols. We did patrols. Sometimes, when it was relatively quiet, at a certain period, when we came back from a patrol, we let go a bit. But the Chinese weren’t crazy. They waited for us. A lot of us were taken as prisoners or were injured or killed. Because when they came back from their patrols, their guards were down. It was because the Chinese had let them take the road that they had led with the sergeant. Generally, it was a sergeant or a lieutenant sometimes. It was like that all the time. There were always little skirmishes like that.
Our duty, even for me as an office clerk, my duty to help, was from time to time… For example during the lunch hour, my officer said to me: “Go to the observation station in front, and when you hear shots fired at us, figure out approximately where they came from.” Then I gave those orders to my commander. We had a tank next to us. So, the commander, using his maps was able to go retrieve the shell. We looked with our binoculars and when we saw them, because we could see the Chinese sometimes, we weren’t far, we weren’t very far. That was funny the first months that we arrived. It was probably an army tactic. The enemy was far from us. When I say far, I mean a few thousand feet, for sure. Because it went like that. So, as we were advancing to the front, we were getting closer and closer. For example, on the 355 (hill 355, near the 38th parallel, where violent confrontations took place), you could almost see the eyes of the guy on the other side of the hill. You stay there for less time, that’s for sure. First, because it’s too dangerous. Obviously, you retreat. What we would do is that we would stay for a few weeks, depending on the importance of the position to observe, and then we would return to the back to rest for a bit. And then we continued our training all the same.
My training was in the office. I didn’t always go with the guys. I didn’t have the same training as the others. I didn’t always need it either. I wasn’t a soldier who left. I had grenades around me, but it was only in case of defense, in case something happened. So that’s basically what happened on the frontline. It was like that all the time until the end of June, the end of July (1953). Even at the end of July, when they signed, not the armistice, but the peace treaty, a few days beforehand, we were still being bombed.
During the day, the Australian and American air forces came to bomb the places in front of us. That happened often when we were there. The big bomber planes dropped napalm bombs. They were big bombs and they were like gelatine. They would go into the trenches and set them on fire. It was a way to… We never saw the enemy’s air force, they didn’t have one. I didn’t think that they weren’t able to make it here. Some battles must have been taking place in the air, but further away.
(End of recording)
October 16, 2011
Translator: Ryan Catherine Breithaupt
Making memories
Two sisters, the one on the right is named Mae.
Special quilt to commemorate experience of Home Children.
Numerous ideas of how to acknowledge 2010 as the Year of the British Home Child in Canada have surfaced. One idea is to create a Photo Memory Quilt.
Gail Collins, a third-generation descendant of two British Home Children from St. Catharines, Ontario, woke up one morning with a vision to create a photo memory quilt to honour the British Home Children as a special project for 2010.
Coincidentally, an email from Hazel Perrier of Claresholm, Alberta, was forwarded to her later the same day. Perrier, also a descendant, had the same idea for a memory quilt, so the two women put the idea into practice. To do this they are collaborating by email, as both live in different provinces.
Their goal is to create a quilt that captures the essence and struggles of home children who immigrated to Canada from 1869 to 1948.
Hazel Perrier speaks with Assistant Editor Bev Tallon:
Anyone with pictures and information about home children was encouraged to participate. Those who currently quilt were invited to send in an embroidered or embellished square. Those who don’t quilt could apply a photo using an iron-on transfer to a piece of fabric. Those who couldn’t do either could send a photo, plus money to cover expenses, to Collins who designed a square for them. Squares were accepted until March 18, 2010, and Collins and Perrier are currently working on putting the quilt together.
George Everitt Green.
Squares were received from all over the world, as many descendants have moved away from Canada. The final squares were sent to Perrier in Alberta. She will piece them together to create the final design.
Donations for completion of the Memory Quilt have also been coming in. Collins and Perrier are very appreciative, as it will assist with the final touches and machine quilting expenses.
A book will accompany the quilt as it travels around Canada. Each page will contain a photo explaining its significance, and a note that corresponds to its placement on the quilt. This will allow viewers to locate a specific square, and will also give each photo a bit of history of the Home Child and inspiration for the square.
Upper right: Anne Goldsmith - 28479. Admitted to Barnardo's Home December 24, 1902. Lower right: The family raised by Anne Goldsmith and Charles Hall.
Nova Scotia and New Brunswick are having their annual reunions for home children later this summer, and the quilt will hopefully travel there to celebrate both events. If any other events to celebrate home children arise, the quilt could be “requested” to make an appearance. There are endless possibilities as to how the quilt can be viewed across the country.
Queen Elizabeth will visit Nova Scotia, Ontario, and Manitoba for Canada Day, 2010. The goal is to have the quilt completed for her arrival, so it may welcome the Queen along with a group of home child descendants wearing their British Home Child t-shirts when she arrives in Halifax.
Collins is very excited about the project, and eagerly awaits the mailman to see what people have sent.
"Our vision for a 2010 Memory Quilt got more exciting every day, and surpassed my wildest dreams, when I saw the squares people were submitting from around the world. As I live in Ontario, and Hazel will be finishing it up in Alberta, I won't even get to touch it, I'll just have to hold that original vision in my mind."
Perrier is also thrilled to be a part of the project.
"I consider it a privilege and an honour to be able to work on the Memory Quilt. Since I have no memories of my ‘home children,’ it is very interesting seeing pictures and to read the stories, as it gives me a little insight into their early lives. Also, I am reminded that we live in a very small world.”
— Amanda Hope
See also:
Moment: November 22, 1951
2nd Battalion PPLCI on board ship for Korea, November 1950. / Army, Z-6291-13
It is known as the “Forgotten War”, but Canada’s role in Korea should be anything but forgotten. Fighting as a member of the United Nations, Canada contributed over twenty-six thousand soldiers to serve in Korea. Five hundred and sixteen Canadians lost their lives bravely pursuing the goal to put an end to the violence between North and South Korea, and to restore peace to the two nations.
Hostilities arose between North Korea’s Communist government and South Korea’s Democratic one in 1950 when North Korea’s military forces breached the thirty-eighth parallel and invaded South Korea. Determined to prevent a Third World War, the United Nations sent sixteen of its member nations, Canada among them, to intervene. The United Nations countries defended South Korea against the threat of North Korea, whose forces were joined by China’s People’s Liberation Army. Canada contributed destroyer vessels in 1950, and the first ground troops left for Korea that November. At first, it was uncertain whether or not Canadians would see combat, but it quickly became clear that Canada would, indeed, be engaging in battle.
Canada’s greatest victory of the Korean War was the Battle of Kap’yong. In April 1951, Chinese forces moved towards the Kap’yong Valley; if overtaken, it would provide them with a direct route to the South Korean capital of Seoul. American and South Korean forces had previously defended the area, but retreated as China drew nearer. Upon hearing news that the front was collapsing, Canada rushed to defend Hill 677. Canada planted bombs and traps in hopes of slowing the Chinese forces while awaiting the attack.
In the late evening on April 22nd, the Chinese army attacked. Canada’s Second Battalion of Princess Patricia’s Canadian Light Infantry were greatly outnumbered; they were mere hundreds up against thousands. The battle lasted for ten hours, and supplies had to be dropped by plane when Canada ran out of food and ammunition. By morning on April 23rd, with ten Canadians dead and another twenty-three wounded, the Chinese withdrew. Though it had seemed impossible, Canada had defended the hill.
Unlike their success at Kap’yong, Canadian troops suffered defeat at Chail-li. On May 30th, 1951, Canada carried out an operation to scale Hill 467, not realizing that it was one of China’s most well-defended territories. Once they discovered that their mission was an impossible one, Canada retreated. Withdrawal, usually a difficult feat, was successful; Canada’s six casualties and fifty-four wounded soldiers were recovered and rescued from the scene, leaving no soldier behind.
The battle at Hill 355 was another proud moment for Canadians during the Korean War. This battle, too, saw Canada called in to defend an area abandoned by the Americans. Chinese and North Korean forces attacked Hill 355 on November 22nd, 1951. Canada’s Second Battalion of the Royal Twenty-Second Regiment struggled to defend the hill in harsh, snowy conditions. The battle lasted ninety-six hours and the enemy nearly overtook the hill more than once. Defeat seemed inevitable, but somehow Canada forced the enemy into retreat. Fifteen Canadians lost their lives in the battle, and another thirty-four were wounded.
Peace negotiations between North and South Korea began in 1951, but were not agreed upon until 1953. The Korea Armistice Agreement was signed on July 27th, 1953, putting an end to the hostilities between the two nations. Most Canadians returned home in 1953, but approximately seven thousand peacekeepers would serve in Korea over the next two years in order to ensure lasting peace.
Korean veterans went largely unrecognized for their service despite the bravery shown during the war. They were not formally recognized as war veterans until the late 1980s when the Canadian government decided that the war was, in fact, a war and not a “conflict”. It was not until 1991 that veterans were awarded medals for their service in Korea. Today there are monuments in both Canada and South Korea, commemorating Canadian service in the Korean War. Inscribed on the Monument to the Canadian Fallen are the words “We’ll never forget you brave sons of Canada” — a reminder to all that the Forgotten War is one that must be remembered.
Mother Nature: A Timeline
From fires to floods and everything in between, it seems that Canadians scarcely get a break from the wrath of Mother Nature. A look back on our history seems to confirm this fact — Canadians have suffered and persevered through some wild weather over the years. Not just the land of ice and snow, this timeline highlights some of the worst natural disasters in Canadian history. The slideshow at the bottom captures the devastation caused by these, and other, disasters.
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October 7, 1825 — Great Miramichi Fire
It was an unseasonably hot day when fire broke out in the forests of northern New Brunswick. Known as the Great Miramichi Fire, the disaster destroyed 16,000 square kilometers of land and property and killed 160 people. As people and animals sought refuge in the waters of the Miramichi River, entire communities were reduced to just a few buildings.
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May 19, 1870 — Saguenay Fire
Drought conditions helped fuel a brushfire into a widespread forest fire in Quebec’s Saguenay region in 1870. The fire quickly spanned 150 kilometers and destroyed everything in its path. One third of the region’s residents lost their homes, property and all of their possessions. Watch a Historica Heritage Minute about the Saguenay Fire.
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September 19, 1889 — Québec Rockslide
A heavy rainfall in Quebec City caused a large overhanging rock to collapse onto the street below. Also known as the Champlain Street Disaster, the homes of almost 30 families were in the path of the rockslide. Although the community worked diligently to recover victims from the rubble, the disaster claimed the lives of forty people.
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June 30, 1912 — Regina Cyclone
The cyclone that hit Regina on June 30, 1912 is to date considered one of the deadliest tornados in Canadian history. Its path was narrow but deadly, killing 28 people, injuring hundreds more and destroying thousands of buildings and homes. This podcast from the CBC Digital Archives tells some amazing stories about people who survived, and a few who did not.
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April 29, 1903 — Frank Rockslide
The mining community of Frank, Alberta was only two years old when it was struck with a devastating rockslide. On April 29, 1903, millions of tons of limestone tumbled down Turtle Mountain, burying the mine and most of the town that lay at its base. About 70 people were killed, although only 12 bodies were ever recovered from the rubble. As this video shows, the remains of the rockslide can still be seen at the base of Turtle Mountain.
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November 18, 1929 — Newfoundland Tsunami
In the evening of November 18, 1929, an underwater earthquake occurred hundreds of kilometers south of Newfoundland’s Burin Peninsula. Ranking 7.2 on the Richter Scale, the earthquake triggered a three-wave, 15-meter high tsunami that hit the Burin Peninsula a few hours later. Twenty-eight people were killed, over 10,000 homes were destroyed and the damage exceeded $1 million dollars. Watch an oral history, as survivor Emma Harnett recounts her experiences of the Newfoundland tsunami.
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June 23, 1946 — Courtenay, B.C. Earthquake
The largest onshore earthquake in Canadian history occurred on June 23, 1946. The epicenter was in the middle of Vancouver Island and the earthquake reached a magnitude of 7.3. The infrastructure of nearby communities experienced much damage — a result of the earthquake, as well as subsequent landslides and tsunamis.
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May 1950 — Winnipeg Flood
The flood of 1950 is still very much a part of Manitoba’s collective memory. Heavy snowfall, combined with many spring rainfalls, caused the Red River to rise over its banks. With 25% of the city underwater, over 100,000 people had to be evacuated from their homes — one of the largest evacuations in Canadian history.
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October 15, 1954 — Toronto Hurricane Hazel
It’s not just coastal cities that are vulnerable to extreme weather. On October 15, 1954, one of the country’s worst hurricanes wreaked havoc on Toronto. Hurricane Hazel delivered 216 millimeters of rain and wind gusts up to 150 km/h. Eighty-one Canadians died and thousands more were left homeless when the storm lifted. Agriculture was soaked, bridges were destroyed, and Hazel's final Canadian price tag topped out at over $1 billion in economic and property damage.
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July 31, 1987 — Edmonton Tornado
On July 31, 1987, what was thought to be a typical summer storm quickly developed into one of the worst tornados in Canadian history. The F4 tornado ripped through Edmonton, causing 27 deaths and thousands of injuries. The accompanying storm only added to the destruction, with severe wind speeds, powerful hailstorms and over 300 millimeters of rain in three days.
— Text by Joanna Dawson and Sarah Reilly
The Memory Project: Sharing Stories of World War II
Veterans like René Brunette share their experiences with Canadians as part of The Memory Project.
A Witness to War
The Memory Project: Stories of the Second World War, is a nationwide bilingual project aimed at recording and preserving the first-hand accounts of those who served Canada in World War II. The Historica-Dominion Institute has recorded the stories of thousands of veterans. Here is Margarita Trull speaking about her experiences in the Royal Canadian Navy in World War II.
Visit TheMemoryProject.com to listen to their entire collection, or sample the following stories here.
Yukon Parties
Hilda Watson was the first female leader of a provincial or territorial party.
When the territory was first created in 1898 in response to the Gold Rush, Yukon was governed by a federally appointed commissioner. Although members were elected to a territorial council as early as 1900, this body only held an advisory position and the majority of the power and responsibility rested with the federally-appointed commissioner. It wasn’t until the late 1970s that this began to change and the territory was granted greater control over its government.
In 1977, the Yukon Elections Act was passed and set the scene for one of the territory’s most important elections. Under the new legislation, Yukon would be governed by a fully elected territorial government for the first time in its history. In the 1978 elections, these candidates also ran along traditional party lines for the first time. The changes sparked a new hope in Yukon for moving towards provincial status, which formed the basis for many of the candidates’ campaigns.
Yukon’s 1978 election also marked the first time a woman was the leader of a provincial or territorial political party. Hilda Watson, led the Yukon Conservatives to the first party win in Yukon. Unfortunately, Watson was defeated in her own riding and failed to become Yukon’s first Government Leader.
The 1978 election ushered in a new era of independence for Yukon. In addition to gaining control of their elections and their government, Yukon started to gain the powers and responsibilities previously only granted to the provinces. Today, Yukon maintains control over education, health care, social services and even land and resource management. However, despite the optimism surrounding the 1978 election, Yukon still has not achieved provincial status.
For more on the 1978 election, you can visit the CBC digital archives to listen to election coverage.
You can also visit "The Legislature Speaks"— a great virtual exhibit from the Yukon Archives that features images and audio clips of Yukon's political figures over the years.
Photo Gallery: The Art of Storytelling
Mark Reid, editor-in-chief of Canada's History, spoke recently at Red River College to first year students of the Creative Communications program. Reid was on campus to promote Canada's History's internship programs, as well as to discuss the art of storytelling. He used slides and stories from Canada's History's new book, 100 Days That Changed Canada, as a teaching tool to illustrate how to craft compelling stories for your readers.
Student Kristin Pauls was there in the role of photographer and created the following slideshow of his presentation.
Credit: All photos copyright Kristin Pauls.
Picture-perfect discovery
Just one of the many portraits; scroll down to see photo gallery. Note famous fellow sitting at desk, lower center.
University of Alberta employee makes surprising photographic find of historic significance.
By Michael Davies-Venn; scroll to bottom to view photo gallery.
It was a cold, snowy day in Winnipeg, and Wayne MacDonald was on a hunt, on foot. And his passion saw him braving what he describes as a classic Canadian whiteout, looking for a Mother’s Day gift for his wife, whom the University of Alberta’s Faculty of Extension Government Studies Program Manager had left in Edmonton.
The search took him to a dark room at the back of a Winnipeg antiques store — and what he found there was well beyond what he’d set out for. He made a discovery that deepens his understanding of himself; changes Canada’s historical records; and sets his life on a new path.
It all started with a question to a clerk, when he could not find the right gift at a mall.
“I asked if there’s an antique store nearby. And they said, “Yes. There’s one called the Old Curiosity Shop,’” MacDonald says, an avid collector of Victorian age artefacts.
MacDonald had not come to Manitoba looking for a gift. He’d dashed out his house just a few hours earlier to catch a plane to a conference in Winnipeg. “I’d rushed out the house and had left my coat hanging on the rack because the cab driver who brought me to the airport had arrived early and was honking. So the only clothing I had against the cold was my suit jacket,” he says.
When MacDonald arrived on Edmonton Street at the Old Curiousity Shop, he was a bit disappointed. “I was just about to leave, when the owner, Faye Settler, said to me, “would you like to see in the back room?”’
Because he was an avid collector, MacDonald knew it was wise to always accept such invitations to the attic, back room or basement of antique stores. “Usually there will be something very interesting back there,” he says.
Unfortunately, nothing in the back room caught his eye, either. But just as he was walking out, he glimpsed something. “I saw this portrait sitting up against a wall. And I immediately recognized (the subjects) as my relatives,” he says. “I was absolutely flabbergasted.”
MacDonald’s surprising find is of great significance for historians; it turns out that among his ancestors pictured in the portraits were two men who had met in Charlottetown in 1864 to help hammer out Confederation — former Prime Minister Sir Charles Tupper, and Sir James A. Macdonald, a legal adviser to the Fathers of Confederation and a former federal justice minister and attorney general.
The story of how the portraits came to be at the Old Curiosity Shop — to be eventually discovered by MacDonald — is a tale of luck and serendipity. In 1978, a landlord in Manitoba was suddenly left with framed portraits of people he did not know, explains MacDonald. The landlord thought the images might be worth something so he telephoned an antique dealer — Faye Settler — to examine them.
Settler drove to the house, recognized some of the people in the frames, chose a pristine set of photographs, paid and left. She returned home to her mother, who admonished her for not buying the entire lot, including the damaged portraits. “Her mother said, ‘Are you crazy?! You should have bought them all.’”
So Settler drove back to the house, this time with her seventy-year-old mother in tow — even though the landlord had warned Settler that he had thrown the unpurchased potraits into a nearby dumpster.
“Faye climbs into the dumpster and hands out the eighteen damaged portraits to her mother. And they transported the portraits to a dry storage bin.” MacDonald explained. “And they stayed in that storage bin from 1978 until I came to the conference in 2003.”
It turned out that the portraits had belonged to MacDonald’s cousin, Emma Tupper-Harris. After her death, a relative that Tupper-Harris had lived with abandoned their house and the portraits along with it.
Since 2003, MacDonald has been engaged in what he describes as a labour of love — restoring the frames and pictures. The result of his painstaking work was on display at the University of Alberta’s faculty club February 29. The show — Serendipity: unveiling the historical MacDonald-Tupper Photographs — is also on display today, March 1, at Edmonton’s Extension Gallery Enterprise in the Atrium of Enterprise Square, from 10:00 am to 4:00 pm.
Former Canadian deputy prime minister of Canada Anne Mclelllan, will attend the exhibition, which includes pictures of the entire Tupper family; a Confederation ball in Charlottetown in Halifax in 1864; the investiture of the Governor General, the Marquis of Lorne in Halifax, at Province House in 1878. McDonald says it’s a privilege to bring the images to public.
“I don’t believe that you can ever understand who you are or what your country is if you don’t know where you came from,” he says. “They’re pictures that you’d never ever imagine having access to. It’s kind of like having a window into your past.”
And about the Mother’s Day gift he’d set out for, he says, “I actually found a lovely piece of jewellery for my wife that she enjoyed immensely.”
Provincial Game Changers
This fall, five provinces and two territories will head to the polls. Residents of Prince Edward Island, the Northwest Territories, Manitoba, Ontario, Newfoundland and Labrador, Yukon and Saskatchewan are already in full election mode. Election signs are on lawns, tv ads are airing and mealtimes are being interrupted by canvassers. With millions of Canadians focused on electing their provincial or territorial government, we thought we would take a look back at some notable elections in their history.
Over the next few weeks, we’ll be writing about election “game changers.” From history-making political leaders to nail-biting elections to landslide victories, we’ll look at some of the most exciting moments in provincial political history.
You can also visit this virtual exhibit from the Canadian Museum of Civilization — “A History of the Vote in Canada.” The exhibit is based on a book of the same name, published by Elections Canada. For all you political junkies out there, the book can also be read online here.
The first province to head to the polls will be Prince Edward Island on October 3. With small constituencies and some of the most engaged voters in the country, governments tend to be elected by narrow margins. Click here to read about one of their most historic elections.
While the Northwest Territories now has many of the powers and responsibilities that provinces have, it wasn’t always that way. This timeline looks at the evolution of the landscape and government of the Northwest Territories.
The premier Manitobans elected on July 11, 1888 quickly hurled the province into the national spotlight and created a controversy that is still studied in our schools today.
In Ontario’s 1919 general election, the province's first non-traditional third party was elected to the Legislature — and without having a designated party leader.
From its early days as a British colony, through its time as an independent dominion, and up until it joined Canadian Confederation in 1949, Newfoundland has had a tumultuous political history. Perhaps no more dramatic and significant were the riots of 1861.
For a long time, the Yukon was governed by federally-appointed commissioners. In 1978, however, candidates were running under political party banners for the first time and vying to become the territory's first elected leader.
As Saskatchewan heads to the polls today, our choice for their most "game-changing" election should come as no surprise. It is, of course, the 1944 election when Tommy Douglas led the Co-operative Commonwealth Federation to its historic win.
Queen Elizabeth II’s Diamond Jubilee
Queen Elizabeth II celebrates her Diamond Jubilee this year, marking the sixty-year anniversary of her reign as Queen and Head of the Commonwealth. Elizabeth acceded to the throne on February 6, 1952 after the death of her father, King George VI. It is this day, Accession Day, which is celebrated as the anniversary of the beginning of her reign as Queen Elizabeth II. Her coronation took place over one year later on June 2, 1953.
Queen Elizabeth II is the second monarch to celebrate her Diamond Jubilee; Queen Victoria was the first to do so in 1897. Elizabeth has lived longer than any other British monarch, and her reign is the second-longest in Commonwealth history, surpassed only by Queen Victoria’s sixty-three year reign.
The Queen first visited Canada as Princess Elizabeth in 1951. She made her first visit as Queen in 1957, when she and Prince Philip opened Canada’s twenty-third Parliament. Two years later, the couple completed an extensive tour of Canada in which they visited every province and territory. She visited Canada in 1977 to celebrate her Silver Jubilee, and again in 2002 for her Golden Jubilee.
The Queen has been present for many momentous occasions in Canadian history. Such occasions include the opening of the St. Lawrence Seaway in 1959, Canada’s Centennial celebrations in 1967, the 1976 Montreal Olympics, and the signing of Trudeau’s Constitution Act in 1982. The Queen has made twenty-two official tours of Canada to date — more than any other Commonwealth nation.
Canadian celebrations of the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee began in February. On Accession Day, the Queen’s personal Canadian flag was flown from the Peace Tower on Parliament Hill. The Diamond Jubilee flag was raised the following day. Flags were also flown in cities across the country.
In honour of the Queen, Canada will distribute sixty thousand Diamond Jubilee medals. Medals will be awarded to Canadians who have demonstrated dedication in serving their fellow citizens, their community, and their country. Recipients also include those who have made a significant contribution to Canada or to their community. The first sixty medals were awarded at a reception in Rideau Hall on February 6. The remaining medals will be distributed to deserving nominees throughout the year.
Diamond Jubilee celebrations will also take place within local communities. Festivities may include ceremonies, concerts, teas and luncheons, and the distribution of Diamond Jubilee medals. For information on events in your community and across the nation, visit the Jubilee Events Calendar on Canadian Heritage's website.
— Text by Emily Cuggy
Other online extras
Residential school expert pulls no punches
image courtesy of Trent University
Trent University professor Dr. John Milloy is one of Canada’s foremost experts on the residential school system — and he calls it the way he sees it. Dr. Milloy speaks with Canada’s History Associate Editor Nelle Oosterom in this video interview.
Riots on the Rock
Members of the Royal Newfoundland Companies, who were called on to suppress the riots of 1861.
From its early days as a British colony, through its time as an independent dominion, and up until it joined Canadian Confederation in 1949, Newfoundland has had a tumultuous political history. Perhaps no more dramatic and significant were the riots of 1861.
For much of its history, Newfoundland was a British colony, governed directly by Great Britain's appointed officials. In 1855, however, Newfoundland made great strides towards independence and was granted Dominion status and moved towards a system of responsible government. Unfortunately, its new independence exposed well-rooted divisions between the English Protestant and Irish Catholic populations, who traditionally aligned with the Conservative and Liberal parties, respectively.
Problems in the government began to emerge in 1860 when the Liberal government’s long-time supporter Bishop Mullock became disillusioned with the party. Premier John Kent and his party were under attack for patronage, intimidation, and corruption, and the Bishop released a letter to his parishioners accusing the Liberals of being “a party who take of themselves, but do nothing for the people.” With the Bishop's considerable influence over the Roman Catholic population, these words marked the downfall of the Liberal government.
In February 1861, the Assembly introduced a currency bill that would standardize the currency for the Dominion, which previously used both the British and Newfoundland Sterling. When the opposition leader, Conservative Hugh Hoyles, criticized the bill and petitioned Governor Bannerman to oppose it, Premier Kent made a scene in the Assembly and accused both of conspiring against him and his government. Kent’s outburst was the last straw, and Governor Bannerman dismissed the Liberal government and instated Hoyles as Premier. Bannerman’s abrupt dismissal of the Liberal government quickly backfired and, because they still maintained a majority, the Liberals passed a resolution of non confidence against the Conservative government. Bannerman had no choice but to call an election.
In most ridings, the election ran much as expected, with Protestant populations electing Conservative candidates and Catholic populations supporting the Liberals. However, in a few ridings, religious divides along party lines created tense situations. In Harbour Grace, fighting broke out between supporters of the Protestant and Roman Catholic candidates. Although troops were called in to suppress the violence, they were largely ineffective. When one candidate withdrew his nomination, instead of declaring the remaining two candidates the winners of the riding’s two seats, the returning officer deferred the decision to the Assembly.
Even in Harbour Main, where four Roman Catholic candidates were running as Liberals for two seats, each were backed by different members of the Church and support was divided. Opponents went through great efforts to prevent the other side to vote and even blockaded towns to prevent residents from casting their vote. Riots broke out and the crowd even opened fired, killing one person and injuring several others. In light of the circumstances in Harbour Grace and Harbour Main, the election results were declared invalid and both ridings were effectively disenfranchised. By not filling the four seats from the two ridings, the Conservatives were given a 14 to 12 majority over the Liberals.
The Liberals felt that the disenfranchisement of the Harbour Main and Harbour Grace ridings was an attempt to prevent the party from taking power. When the Assembly opened, two of the candidates from Harbour Main took their seats in protest. Premier Hoyles demanded that they leave and police had to be brought in to remove one of the candidates.
By this point, a crowd had formed outside in support of the Liberals and they soon began to riot. Troops were called in to suppress the riot, although their presence provoked the crowd even more. A shot was fired by one of the rioters and the troops were forced to open fire on the crowd. Three people were killed, including one of the Roman Catholic priests who had been trying to restore order to the streets. Bishop Mullock rang the cathedral bells over the city, summoning the crowd to the church. There, he urged people to end the violence and to return to their homes peacefully. Fortunately, the rest of the night passed uneventfully.
The riots of 1861 represented a climax in sectarian conflict and a turning point for politics in Newfoundland. In the aftermath of the violence-ridden election, both parties, as well as their constituents, realized the danger of such divisions. Even religious leaders, like Bishop Mullock, recognized the inherent problems of having political parties aligned so closely with religion. In the years following, political parties began to move away from their religious affiliations and toward a more equal and inclusive system.
Royal Tours of Canada: Timeline
Cornerstone laid by Albert, Prince of Wales in 1860.
Prince William and Kate Middleton are being added to a long list of royal visits to Canada as they embark on their first tour of the country together. In the past, Canada has played host to many royals on both personal and official visits. The newlyweds will not only participate in the traditional obligations of past royals, but they will also enjoy new adventures on their journey through Canada. For full details on the couple’s itinerary, click here.
1786
The first member of the royal family to visit Canada is Prince William Henry, the future King William IV. Prince William is serving in the Royal Navy when he sails his ship, the HMS Pegasus, to Halifax after completing a tour of service in the West Indies.
1860
Queen Victoria’s son Albert, Prince of Wales, travels to Ottawa to lay the cornerstone of Canada’s new Parliament buildings.
1878
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King George VI and Queen Elizabeth at Woodbine Race Course, May 1939.
Princess Louise, daughter of Queen Victoria, is the first female member of the royal family to visit the country. Princess Louise will live in Canada for five years while her husband, the Marquis of Lorne, carries out his duties as Governor General.
1901
King George V and Queen Mary, the Duke and Duchess of Cornwall, complete a two-month tour which takes them from coast to coast.
1939
King George VI and Queen Elizabeth travel from coast to coast on a six-week tour. This is the first time that a reigning monarch has visited Canada. As World War II becomes imminent, the tour is scheduled in order to ensure Canada’s support of Britain. The tour draws massive crowds unlike any Canada has seen before; in some cities, over one hundred thousand people show up hoping to catch a glimpse of the royals. The royal walkabout also finds its origins on the tour; after unveiling the National War Memorial in Ottawa, the royals enter the crowd of spectators to greet veterans and excited onlookers.
The Beaver published a pictorial in the September 1939 issue which you can view here; click on the image.
1951
Queen Elizabeth II and Prince Philip visit the country. This is Elizabeth’s first visit to Canada, and the first time she and Prince Philip have toured as a couple. Queen Elizabeth and Prince Philip will visit Canada many times over the next sixty years; the two royals have completed more official tours and spent more time in Canada than any other monarch.
1967
An exciting year for Canada, Queen Elizabeth II returns to the country to attend celebrations for both the Centennial of Confederation and the World Exposition in Montreal. On Canada Day, the Queen delivers a speech on Parliament Hill and cuts the first slice of a nine-meter tall cake to celebrate Canada’s one hundredth birthday. In Montreal, the Queen visits the British and Canadian pavilions at the World Expo. To the dismay of her security detail, Queen Elizabeth insists that she ride a mini-rail which circles the fair. Crowds of people gather underneath as she passes overhead.
1976
The royal family travels to Montreal for the 1976 Summer Olympics. Queen Elizabeth officially opens the Games as Canada’s head of state on July 17th. Princess Anne is competing in the Games as a member of England’s equestrian team.
1983
Prince Charles and Princess Diana embark on their first Canadian tour as a couple. The royals visit the Maritime provinces, Ontario, and Alberta. The couple open the World University Games in Edmonton and attend celebrations for Newfoundland’s four hundredth anniversary of becoming a British colony. While his parents are away, Prince William celebrates his first birthday back in England.
1991
Charles and Diana return to Canada, this time with their young sons William and Harry. The seven day visit takes the family through Ontario as they tour Ottawa, Toronto, Sudbury, Kingston, and Niagara Falls. Much of their time is spent apart, however, with William and Harry spending the trip sightseeing, rather than partaking in Charles and Diana’s more formal obligations.
2010
On her twenty-second official visit to Canada, Queen Elizabeth’s royal tour celebrates Canada’s record of service. Accompanied by Prince Philip, the Queen attends many public events, including Canada Day festivities on Parliament Hill.
2011
Newlyweds Prince William and Kate Middleton, the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge, experience their first Canadian tour as a couple. Their itinerary will include stops in Ottawa, Montreal, Quebec City, Charlottetown, Summerside, Yellowknife, and Calgary. Just as other royals have done before them, the couple will complete staples such as laying a wreath at the National War Memorial, planting a tree at Government House, and celebrating Canada Day on Parliament Hill.
- Emily Cuggy
Secrets of Ruperts Land
The Wisharts were among the presenters at the recent 2010 Colloquium at the University of Winnipeg, where they spoke with Canada’s History Associate Editor Nelle Oosterom.
It wasn’t long ago when many Canadians hid the fact that they were part aboriginal.
It was not uncommon for parents to refuse to reveal their native heritage to their children, often out of concern that their offspring would be teased and discriminated against.
Many are the descendants of fur traders. It was, for instance, common for Scottish-born employees with the Hudson’s Bay Company to take aboriginal wives.
Shirley Wishart and her brother Vernon know this firsthand: They believed they had only European roots until they stumbled upon a secret that changed the course of their lives.
The Alberta-born Wisharts developed a passion for learning about their heritage. Shirley conducted extensive research on their ancestors, and Vernon wrote a family history book entitled What Lies Behind the Picture?
They have also been regular attendees of the Ruperts Land Colloquium, a biannual event which draws people engaged in aboriginal and fur trade research. The Wisharts were among the presenters at the recent 2010 Colloquium at the University of Winnipeg, where they spoke with Canada’s History Associate Editor Nelle Oosterom.
Listen to Shirley and Vernon Wishart talk about what it was like to discover their native heritage: (duration: 4 min, 3 sec)
Canada's History wins two Western Magazine Awards
Canada's History (Formerly The Beaver) earned two top prizes on October 16 during a gala ceremony in Vancouver. The magazine captured awards for photography that appeared in the October-November 2009 edition of The Beaver magazine.
The award-winning work was titled “Saving Skid Row” — a photo essay on historical hotels in Vancouver's Downtown Eastside.
Photographer Robert Karpa, of Venturi + Karpa, won the category of Best Portrait, and also, Best Photo Essay. Text for the article was written by Vancouver writer Christopher Pollon.
The award-winning article was designed by Art Director Michel Groleau, and edited by Associate Editor Nelle Oosterom.
Canada's History congratulates everyone involved with the article. The magazine was also a finalist in two other categories: Magazine of the Year (Manitoba) and Best Magazine Feature (Manitoba).
The “Saving Skid Row” article begins with "The old buildings of Vancouver's Downtown Eastside have a checkered past. Is there shady heritage worth saving?"
Decide for yourself: we provide the article below as it appeared it print.
Tales of Home
Canadian Stories is a literary folk magazine written by or about Canadians. The publisher is compiling an anthology of British Home Children.
Magazine to mark Home Children experience with new book.
A special edition anthology book about British Home Children will be published later this year by Canadian Stories magazine to commemorate 2010 as the Year of the British Home Child. The anthology, in conjunction with a memory quilt and Canada Post honorary stamp, will pay tribute to the 100,000 children sent to Canada from Britain from 1869-1948.
Canadian Stories is a literary folk magazine written by or about Canadians. It features writing about family stories, personal experiences, and memories from the past. It includes excerpts from memoirs, as well as stories, and essays speculating about the future. Some of the topics that have been featured include: pioneer days, life during the Great Depression and the World Wars, the joys of moving, country life, vacation experiences, encounters with animals, and the significance of Remembrance Day.
Ed Janzen, publisher of Canadian Stories magazine, is currently gathering stories from all over North America that will be compiled into an anthology book later this summer. As of April 1, Janzen had received over twenty-five submissions, and many more are being collected. The anthology will hopefully be a two-hundred-page collection, and it will be available later this year.
To submit a story, contact Canadian Stories magazine.
See also:
The First Labour Day
In a time when workers’ rights are taken for granted and even workers’ benefits have come to be expected, it’s no wonder that the origins of Labour Day are confined to the history books. What evolved into just another summer holiday began as a working class struggle and massive demonstration of solidarity in the streets of Toronto.
Canada was changing rapidly during the second half of the 19th century. Immigration was increasing, cities were getting crowded, and industrialization was drastically altering the country’s economy and workforce.
As machines began to replace or automate many work processes, employees found they no longer had special skills to offer employers. Workers could easily be replaced if they complained or dissented and so were often unable to speak out against low wages, long work weeks and deplorable working conditions.
This is the context and setting for what is generally considered Canada’s first Labour Day event in 1872. At the time, unions were illegal in Canada, which was still operating under an archaic British law already abolished in England.
For over three years the Toronto Printers Union had been lobbying its employers for a shorter work week. Inspired by workers in Hamilton who had begun the movement for a nine-hour work day, the Toronto printers threatened to strike if their demands weren’t met. After repeatedly being ignored by their employers, the workers took bold action and on March 25, 1872, they went on strike.
Toronto’s publishing industry was paralyzed and the printers soon had the support of other workers. On April 14, a group of 2,000 workers marched through the streets in a show of solidarity. They picked up even more supporters along the way and by the time they reached their destination of Queen’s Park, their parade had 10,000 participants – one tenth of the city’s population.
The employers were forced to take notice. Led by George Brown, founder of the Toronto Globe and notable Liberal, the publishers retaliated. Brown brought in workers from nearby towns to replace the printers. He even took legal action to quell the strike and had the strike leaders charged and arrested for criminal conspiracy.
Conservative Prime Minister John A. Macdonald was watching the events unfold and quickly saw the political benefit of siding with the workers. Macdonald spoke out against Brown’s actions at a public demonstration at City Hall, gaining the support of the workers and embarrassing his Liberal rival. Macdonald passed the Trade Union Act, which repealed the outdated British law and decriminalized unions. The strike leaders were released from jail.
The workers still did not obtain their immediate goals of a shorter work week. In fact, many still lost their job. They did, however, discover how to regain the power they lost in the industrialized economy. Their strike proved that workers could gain the attention of their employers, the public, and most importantly, their political leaders if they worked together. The “Nine-Hour Movement,” as it became known, spread to other Canadian cities and a shorter work week became the primary demand of union workers in the years following the Toronto strike.
The parade that was held in support of the strikers carried over into an annual celebration of worker’s rights and was adopted in cities throughout Canada. The parades demonstrated solidarity, with different unions identified by the colorful banners they carried. In 1894, under mounting pressure from the working class, Prime Minister Sir John Thompson declared Labour Day a national holiday.
Over time, Labour Day strayed from its origins and evolved into a popular celebration enjoyed by the masses. It became viewed as the last celebration of summer, a time for picnics, barbecues and shopping.
No matter where you find yourself this Labour Day, take a minute to think about Canada’s labour pioneers. Their actions laid the foundations for future labour movements and helped workers secure the rights and benefits enjoyed today.
— Text by Joanna Dawson
For more on the history of labour in Canada, visit this online exhibit from the Canadian Museum of Civilization. Or, browse through the gallery below for a few images highlighting labour events over the years. Click on the first image to start the slideshow.
Photo Credits: 1. McCord Museum; 2. McCord Museum; 3. McCord Museum; 4. Henry Joseph Woodside / Library and Archives Canada / PA-017207; 5. Image courtesy of Peel's Prairie Provinces, a digital initiative of the University of Alberta Libraries; 6. Henry Peters/Library and Archives Canada/PA-029974; 7. William James Topley/Library and Archives Canada/PA-010585; 8. William James Topley/Library and Archives Canada/PA-010538.
The Memory Project: Carol Duffus
Carol Duffus, 1944. Image below: Duffus (right) working out naval tactics.
Here is Carol Duffus speaking about her experiences in the Royal Canadian Navy in World War II. You can also visit The Memory Project for more stories.
Audio Transcript
My name is Carol Duffus, formerly Hendrie. I was born in Toronto, September 25th, 1918. I did finally get called up in March of 1943. So, I stayed in until September 1945. Then I served as a WREN. We were called WRENS. The British women in the navy were called WRENS too and we took that name on only we called ourselves WRENs with a C, WRCNS, Women’s Royal Canadian Naval Service. And we were associated with the navy. In Britain, it wasn’t so, they were a separate unit.
And then after a while, I, I, a position came free in the training office, a staff officer training was leaving, and so I took over at the staff officer training. And turned into the person who arranged training for the crews of any of the ships that came in, escort ships, when they needed training and tactical work or action stations or signaling or gunnery. I assigned the training in that job to, to anyone who needed it. So that was kind of interesting too. It was a good job.
The tactical table was to teach the tactics to the escort vessels when they were taking a convoy across the Atlantic. And it was six of the WREN officers took over a on a, well the tactical table wasn’t really a table, it was more like a, sort of a gym floor. Only, it had a wall all the way around it, about a little bit above a waist level.
And the WRENS, who were taking over, whenever the escorts went out, there were six taking a convoy across. So we had representatives from six escort vessels there on, on the other side of a wall, they couldn’t see us, but we could look over at them. So each of us was assigned a ship. And each ship in this escort group would send their captain and their navigating officer and the signals man up. And they would sit on the other side of the wall, they couldn’t see what we were doing up on the table. And each of us was assigned a ship so they would give us the instructions that that ship would take, in so many periods of time. It was a tactical game that was, given to the escorts, in this case, a game, a tactical game where they were taking a convoy across. There would be one at the head of the convoy and one at the stern. And then there would be one stationed on each quarter of the convoy. And they were to protect the convoy from submarine attacks.
Tactical Table Operations Photograph, 1944. Duffus at Right.
So it was a game played, it was sort of set and they would give them situations and it was all plotted out on the table by, by the WRENS who were doing the plotting on the table. It was all marked off in sections and we would chalk everything down as they’d tell us. Each of us would have one ship. They would instruct us what that ship was to do and we would plot it on the table, which was really the floor. We were down on our hands and knees for that.
And so they would play the game as situations arose, in this imaginary game that would happen. Perhaps it would be announced that there was a submarine sighted somewhere or someone had seen a, a ship blow up, so they knew a submarine had done that. These were all just cases that might happen, that was the game.
So we were, we were given these little chits every two minutes or so from our ship, each one of us had their ship and we would plot it on this tactical table. And this would go on for perhaps an hour, maybe two, as the situation arose and the uh, training commander would be there giving the instructions.
Tactical Table Operations Photograph, 1944
So at the end of the game, all the people who were doing the plotting, the captains and so on, came up on the table and they would see what they had done. And the training commander, who would review the whole situation, would see what had been done over the whole period of time by us plotting their instructions to us, as they would say, I’m going, you know, a certain degree for so, for so long and we would plot that.
So it was all laid down in chalk and when the game was over, everybody would come up on the table and then the whole thing would be criticized by the training commander. He would say to each of them, now, in this case, perhaps it would have been better if you had done this or that and so on. So it was very, it was a good educational tool and tactics, and they learned a lot that way I think.
And you often hear about women looking, being looked down on because they were women, doing a certain job. But I never, never, never felt that, ever. I was treated with tremendous respect and, and knowledge of what I was doing. And so you know, I, I think that was probably why I advanced to the staff officer training because I was respected and that I knew what I was doing and why I was there. So it was, it was fine. I had no problem at all being a woman.
An awful lot of people don’t know what the women did in the services during the war. And I think they should have a little more publicity because if it weren’t for what they did, a lot of things would not have been done. So I felt that I was able to do something useful. That was good and I think there are an awful lot of other women too who did useful things and they would never probably be recognized for what they did. I’d like to have people know that they did serve, they were very important.
[end of tape]
The Memory Project: Cyril H. Roach
Cyril Roach, Gibraltar, 1946. Below left: LST ship on Sword Beach, Normandy, D-Day 1944. Below right: Roach in marching band, second row, middle.
Here is Cyril Roach speaking about his experiences in the Royal Canadian Navy in World War II. You can also visit The Memory Project for more stories.
Audio Transcript
My name is Cyril Roach and I was born on the 21st of October, 1924. I went through training and I became an engineer officer aboard an LST, which was a double decker landing ship. Which was used at the time of our landings in France. On June the 5th, we were destined to leave from Portsmouth, with troops. We landed on the three beaches, which was at that time deemed the British sector.
On D-Day, we arrived in France, having left the Isle of Wight on the night of the 5th of June, about 11:00. We arrived off Le Havre, which was in the sector near Ouistreham. This of course was a point where troops landing with the objective of Caen. On landing, the ship dropped the anchor a half a mile out and we then put full speed ahead onto the beaches so that we were able to land the troops and light equipment, which supported also part of the sixth airborne division as well as other contingents of the army.
At that time, we were being shelled very heavily from the high ridge over Le Havre and the sea was full of ships as far as you could see. And there were thousands of aircraft, overhead — bombers, fighters — and many of the gliders that were towed in to support the landing of the ground troops.
However, at that time, shortly after our arrival, we started to unload and there were three Messerschmidts that then strafed the beaches. Regretfully, we lost many men. I also was injured at the time. However, I survived, I’m happy to say.
I was the engineer officer aboard that ship. I was a senior, second in command and of course, we had stokers in the engine room. All of my crew were actually Canadians from out west. And they did an excellent job. But of course, the most important thing was that at the time, the diesels were 1,500 horsepower diesels that drove the ship, twin crews. And my responsibility was to ensure that we, the equipment, everything was fully operational.
I will be quite honest with you, the moment we were landing, I thought, who’s mother’s son dies today? Not just our own boys, but our enemy as well. I learned unfortunately that Hitler Youth were in exercise in that general area and those boys were only 14, 15, 16, just kids. They never saw their homes again.
However, I can only put it just the way I saw it. And the time was, the action, one… I can’t say I was scared. I was just doing my job. And my boys did their job. And like everything else, when you’re called into action, you have to concentrate on what you’re doing and also to ensure that we survived and looked after the boys when we picked them up. But it wasn’t a day that one would forget. I assure you.
(end of tape)
The Memory Project: David Galbraith
David Galbraith (c) The Memory Project
Video transcription
[00:00:00] (onscreen: David Galbraith, C.D., Warrant Officer, Royal Canadian Navy)
[00:00:03] (onscreen: Enlistment)
[00:00:08] Well, I started out in sea cadets and I enjoyed it very much. My dad is a Second War veteran and he was in the army and I knew a bit about the sea cadets. I was walking downtown one day and there was a chap looking with a big sign up there, join the navy, and I said, okay, that’s a good idea. So I went home, I was only 17 and my dad said, I’ll sign the papers as long as you stay in the service as a career. Which I did.
[00:00:47] (onscreen: HMCS Iroquois in Korea)
[00:00:51] The only time we got into sort of any action, when you see a junk that we didn’t know it was enemy or anything, and as soon as we fired at them. We also supported the army by lopping shells, as long as they were close enough, we could fire the shells in. And the funniest part I guess in a way about my career is that this one junk came alongside the ship and they were too close for our guns to fire at so two or three of us actually grabbed a shell, really heavy shell and we threw it and it went into the junk, it just went through it. It didn’t blow up, it just went right through it and we sunk it that way, so it was almost hilarious at the time what had happened.
[00:01:35] (onscreen: Canoe River Train Crash, 1950)
[00:01:40] In fact, it wasn’t until about three years ago that in fact, I go to the schools and speak to the kids in school, it wasn’t until three years ago that they decided to add the Korea vets to go to the schools and talk to them. And everybody talked, oh, Korea, that was only a conflict, it wasn’t really a war or anything, no. And actually, I can’t remember the date now or how many, I guess our worst thing about the Canadian casualties was when two trains were going out west and we lost several members when the trains collided. And these are guys that never even got to Korea.
[00:02:29] (onscreen: Looking Back)
[00:02:34] I’d do it again in a minute. What I saw and what I hear about people, what people have done and everything, these young fellows from Afghanistan, they’ve lost their life for Canada.
[00:02:52] (onscreen: David Galbraith, C.D., Warrant Officer, Royal Canadian Navy, The Memory Project)
[00:03:01] (end of tape)
August 19, 2011
Transcriptionist: Wendy Neuhofer
The Memory Project: Don Jatiouk
Don Jatiouk (c) The Memory Project
Audio transcription
We were the only United Nations ship to capture a ship and the crew of the North Korean navy. This was a small mine layer, it was really a converted sampan [a flat bottomed wooden boat common in Asia] but these people had navy uniforms on belonging to the North Korean navy. We were able to get in behind the small mine layer on the night that I was on duty in the operations room. And what happened was about 2:00 am in the morning, I had picked up a bogey [an unknown or enemy radar signature] on what we called a Sperry scope radar which is a high definition radar set at the time. And spotting the bogey, I reported it to our petty officer on watch who was looking after the watch at the time and he asked me position and bearing and what have you. Then I had to mention that the bogey split in two and one part of it disappeared. And I was a little bit perplexed by this because I’d never seen this happen with any other bogey from the past. And he said, well, keep a close eye on it, I asked him what he thought it was, he didn’t know.
So anyways, once more this bogey split in two and one part disappeared just as the captain came into the operations room because by that time, action alarm had been sounded and everybody was closing up to action stations. And the captain, right at that moment, it dawned on me that this was, whatever the bogey was, was laying mines, that was the only reason for a bogey to disappear that I could think of and I was on the money on that one. And I mentioned this to the captain, that we were about 1,500 yards from where the first split bogey disappeared and he was a little bit perplexed looking at me and sort of questioning my assessment of the situation.
But anyways, he agreed and made a 20 degree turn to port and we skirted around where the object had disappeared and got in behind the mine layer before they could get ashore. Now, by the time we got in behind, they had already laid three magnetic mines. Now, magnetic mines are exploded by metal, steel or iron ship passing over them and the magnetism from the ship detonates the mine and explodes it.
In any event, we captured the North Korean navy vessel, the crew dispersed overboard from their ship into the water and we had our cutter [a small fast boat] from our ship round them up in the water and there was one that resisted and he was shot. And another one had drifted onto a rocky outcrop which we picked up in the morning who was in serious hypothermic condition. And the next day, we had to call in an American minesweeper and the minesweepers of course are made with wooden hulls so that they would not detonate magnetic mines. And the American sweeper was going back and forth in the area where we had spotted this operation and I was on deck when he exploded the first mine and what a tremendous explosion, I couldn’t believe it. Had to be at least 250 feet in diameter and straight up in the air for at least 150 feet, just a massive explosion. I’m certain that if we had ran over that mine that night, the ship would have been lost and out with probably heavy casualties.
When they started approaching these guys [the North Korean sailors], they went overboard, they were all in truck inner tubes as a flotation device, number one, and they picked up one or two and they came across another fellow who had a bigger insignia on his cap, I presume he had to be the ship’s captain and he had the Chinese version of burp gun [a sub-machinegun with such a high rate of fire that it had a distinctive noise when it fired] I think they used to call them. And he started to pick that up and aim it and getting prepared to shoot at the oncoming motor cutter with our men in it. And of course, the men on the motor cutter, there was about five of six of them that were armed and they all opened fire at once. Of course, the North Korean navy captain didn’t last long, we punctured the inner tube, that blew up and many shots hit his body and he just disappeared.
It was early morning, oh, it was probably around mid-July 1952 and we got an urgent message from our South Korean patrol craft, that she had ran aground on rocks off of they called a Haejuman, sort of a gulf heading up into the Korean peninsula. And she was sinking. We were on patrol at the time in that particular area and of course, we went to her rescue. Now, the operation required that we save the ship from sinking and also we were well within range of any shore batteries [shore based guns which targeted naval vessels] that were in the area. And taking into consideration that we would be a standing target for a number of hours, it was necessary that we bring in backup. There was a British cruiser in the same patrol area called HMS Belfast, she was a big cruiser, a heavy cruiser with eight inch guns and I think she had eight inch.
Anyways, with her onsite within a mile of the operation, we were able to send our damage control party onboard this South Korean patrol craft and it was really funny to watch them throwing everything overboard, ammunition, all food supplies of all sorts all went into the water to lighten it as much as possible, even removed one of the guns and threw it overboard. And they were able to patch up the hole in the ship enough so it would stay afloat.
Now, we took this under tow, a side tow it was called because we literally tied that patrol craft to the side of our ship. And we didn’t break free from that rock until about 8:00, 8:30 in the morning and if the British cruiser had not been onsite with us, I’m sure by that time, all that we would have been was just a bunch of scrap metal.
But anyways, we were able to save this patrol craft and take it one of the friendly held islands called Chung Yang Do. I don’t know if you can pronounce that but anyways, a number of the crew of this patrol craft were from that island, they were extremely grateful for saving their husbands and brothers and what have you.
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Veterans Affairs Canada: The Korean War — Teaching Resources
October 7, 2011
Transcriptionist: Wendy Neuhofer
The Memory Project: Frank Lucano
Frank Lucano (c) The Memory Project
Audio transcription
I was a late replacement for what we called the Light Aid Detachment commander. That’s the group of mechanics if you want to call it that go with the armoured corps to keep their equipment in shape. Not just the tanks but we took care of everything, all of the guns, the small arms, all the generators, all the B vehicles and the wheel vehicles, armoured cars, trucks, dump trucks. We had a dump truck. And we even took care of the cooking equipment that the cooks used.
But getting onboard the ship was rather interesting. It was the, one of the general class transport ships, which would take about 6,000 troops. And we were fortunate in that we only had about 4,000 onboard, so we weren’t crowded too much. But it was interesting, we arrived there, we were onboard the ship and as a unit, the Royal Canadian Dragoons, and, Dog Squadron, and a few other RCEME [Royal Canadian Electrical and Mechanical Engineers] people who were going over that belonged to other units. But all the Americans that were coming onboard were all draftees. And they were individual replacements. We were a unit replacement, we were going over to replace the Strathcona squadron [Lord Srathcona’s Horse, an armoured regiment] that was there. They were all individual replacements and it was rather interesting to see them coming up the way they called their name, last name, and they’d answer with their first name. They’d step onboard the gangplank, and up they come. Helping one of these kids with these boxes up the gangplank, was a rather young fellow, when he got to the top, they wouldn’t let him off the ship. And he went to Korea with the clothes he had on and stayed in Korea for the full year as a draftee. And anybody puts a foot onboard that ship never got off.
And the flying fish came out and they were flying right across the pass of the ship, right up onto the deck. And of course, there’d be about as, well, about 10 inches long and they were fairly big. And they looked like a fish with big mosquito wings on them and flip them back over. So some of the guys would make them into pets but it didn’t work out. But they had never ever, in A, aboard a big ship or B, seen flying fish before. So every day it was something new for not only me but many, many of the kids that were on there too.
Although the truce had been assigned, Seoul was still a mess and it was bombed out pretty bad. And we crossed the Han River on a temporary bridge and started going up the main supply route, MSR as it was called up towards a place called Uijeongbu. Some of the names still stick in your mind after a while. And the road turned to moss port gravel and it got narrower and narrower. And the dust got thicker and thicker, you know, we had to slow down to go through a one-lane village. The dust was flying up and we slowed down going through this village and this was our and their introduction into getting close to the demarcation lines, if you want to call it. But I remember this particular village. We could touch the shacks on both sides, leaning out the trucks. And on the side of the road was a little Korean kid about seven, eight years old. And he had a stick, about a four foot long stick with a soup can nailed on the end. And he was urinating into the soup can and taking the urine and spreading it on the dust in front of this little shack that was there. And the shack that was there had an open counter and hanging in the shack on racks were dried fish covered with dust. This was sort of our beginning of introduction into things that were different from Canada.
But this particular time in the middle of the scram [practice for an air raid], it didn’t come “air raid yellow”, caution, it came “air raid red.” Which meant it’s coming. The reason I’m chuckling is that it got stood down about 10 minutes later but in the meantime, “air raid warning red,” we had tanks all warmed up in the compound that I showed you a picture of. And when the air raid warning, every one of the guys manned the 50-caliber machine gun was on the top of the tank. And we had three ground-mounted machine guns. They were manned as well. Covers off. One up the spout because a 50-caliber, you have to cock twice to get the thing ready to fire. And I’m there, and to this day I’m thinking, those kids, and they were all kids, you know, are of one mind or the other mind, was, if anything comes around like this, this low, they’re going to blow them out of the sky with 50-caliber machine guns. He won’t know what hit him. See. They were ready. And the other thought that’s in their mind is, “Oh boy, if this happens, it’s World War III and we’re it in the front row.” So you can see these kids grow up so fast. And I must say, they turned out to be a real professional bunch.
We did go through Jasper [Alberta], which was the first stop that we had after we entered Canada. And it was well organized. What we did was we spoke to the train conductor, saying “We want to stop in Jasper.” “Well, we’re not scheduled to stop in Jasper.” “We want to stop in Jasper and we don’t want to be in Jasper before 10:00 am.” “I’ll see what I can do. We’re on a freight train run.” He come back, told the old man [regimental commander], “Yep, we can manage that.” He says, “We can stop for 10 minutes.” He said, “That’s all it’s going to take.” The train came to a stop, the sergeant major got off and walked over to the liquor store. And he stood outside the front of the liquor store and the people he had organized went in and picked up a case of this and a case of that and a case of this and as they were going out, the sergeant major was peeling off the bills. I was duty officer that day, I was there making sure everybody got back on the train.
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October 15, 2011
Transcriptionist: Wendy Neuhofer
The Memory Project: Jim Keeler
Jim Keeler's medal (c) The Memory Project
Audio transcription
On our trip down to Ft. Louis [in Washington state] from Shilo [Manitoba], I was on the first train and we got in to Ft. Louis and the first thing we heard that the second train had been a head-on collision in B.C. in a place called Canoe River. And we lost 17 of our people in that train crash. And little did we know at the time that that was more people than we’d lose all the time we were in Korea.
The last six months or so in Korea was fairly static. Most of the winter, we were in one position and stayed there. We were allowed to dig in, we lived underground. We dug good dugouts and found timbers to put over and then canvass and keep us from getting wet. We had one sleeping place was just big enough. What we did was take the brass that’s leftover when a 25 pounder [gun] fires the shells and they’re about so high and squeezed the top and the stretcher, we’d get stretchers and by squeezing the top of the shells, they’d fit over the legs of the stretcher and get us off the ground by about that much.
So that was good and we made our own stoves out of ammo boxes with radio aerials used as lines to run the straight gas into these things in a drip system. So we lived pretty dangerous lives for a while, you know. But we turned them off at night, you’d never go to sleep with one of these on because you know, you’d never wake up probably. And besides that, for the smell of the gas and that and the dugout, because there are no windows. And what we had over the doors, you wouldn’t make a direct line into your dugout, it was sort of an L-shape, you’d go one way and then turn and go into your dugout. And over the doors, we used blankets to keep as doors.
We had one accident with that. We always had Korean kids around with us, you know, they’d wash our clothes and they’d help us out with little chores and such and one day we were in one of these dugouts and I heard a trickle of gas and I knew what was going on. So I said, get out of here, so we all got out except one man and what happened was, the Korean kids were filling the gas tank outside and they overflowed it and of course, the gas followed the line and soaked the blankets where it was coming through. And as soon as it hit the fire, it just backed up. But the guy got out, they sent him to Japan and he recovered alright but it was scary. We watched the fires a little more from then on. So like I say, the last part of the war was fairly static.
And we got out of there, our regiment was fairly lucky. We lost a captain, a couple of gunners. And the conditions that we had, we were pretty well equipped, although we were using Second World War equipment, like rifles, Second World War [artillery] guns and even Second World War ammunition that had been stocked. All our vehicles came from the U.S. and they were obsolete vehicles, bought as obsolete. And they bought extras, to keep them going.
As far as clothing, we had excellent sleeping bags, uniforms, winter wear. I think we had as good as there are and our rations, we had American rations. We were on American rations all the time except for when we were coming home, we were in Japan for two weeks on the way home and we were fed Australian rations but there was an American canteen just down the road that had hamburgers and hot dogs and I think they got a bigger business than the mess. Because there was a lot mutton and such and that didn’t appeal too much to us.
But yes, we had good rations, good clothing. The equipment worked well. We had one accident with a gun that blew up and one sergeant. There was two people killed I believe on that gun and one sergeant ended up with most of his stomach gone, he’s since died but he did get home. But you know, that can happen to anything, it wasn’t I don’t think because they were old guns and leftover.
When we went there, we were attached to the Americans right away, our brigade. Well actually, the PPCLI [Princess Patricia’s Canadian Light Infantry] went first in the Fall of 1950 and they were attached to the Americans, because they were there as a battalion. And the American wanted to put them in action right away and the colonel wouldn’t do it. And then the Americans sort of took them to task for that but he won out because he said, my people aren’t trained for this country. You know, you’ve got to give me a couple of weeks. Which they did eventually.
So then after we were there and the brigade was back together, we had three infantry battalions and the artillery and the course, and the New Zealanders were there and the Australians were there, so they decided they were going to form a Commonwealth division. And they did. So then we were in 25th Canadian Infantry Brigade and part of the First Commonwealth Division. And then they worked with the Americans of course. But it worked out well, we didn’t have any conflict with them. Any of the conflict was above us, between the officers and whatever, if there was any. I know there was a story went around about when the Americans were on that hill they called Little Gibraltar, which was 355 was the number of it. And that meant the elevation. And the Americans were on there and the Van Doos [a nickname for the Royal 22e Régiment] were on the saddle, they called it saddle beside them. And from where I was, you could see this attack starting in the afternoon and you could hear it. I could see the puffs on the mountain and hear the guns going off and of course, we were talking about it and saying, it looks like the Americans are going to get it tonight.
So during the night, the North Koreans really put on a push and they chased the Americans off. And so the Americans are on this high hill, the Van Doos are down here and in the morning, this is Chinese now or North Koreans. So the story goes that the Van Doos colonel, he said the Americans went so fast that their cigarettes looked like fireflies.
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September 19, 2011
Transcriptionist: Wendy Neuhofer
The Memory Project: Joseph Gautreau
Joseph Gautreau (c) The Memory Project
Audio transcription
[The barracks that Joseph Gautreau lived while stationed in Korea] The building was in three stories and one story at the top was the officers so they had maids that made the beds and stuff like that. And then the middle floor was sergeants and NCOs [non-commissioned officers] and they probably had girls working in there as well. And then the kitchen staff, cleaning staff, we had a big crew really that way.
I was impressed with the house next door, there was a big cement wall or brick wall all around it and apparently, it was being used as a hospital sort of thing. But what impressed me was there was a young fellow that, he arrived about the same time as I did, he was going there, they were going to treat him, they were going to operate on him for something, he was really pale. And his mother had to come and he could go to that little hospital but you had to supply your own meals. And his mother used to come every day with a baby on her back and cook his meals outside on a little, well, I don’t know what kind of stove it was, you just put the pot on top of that and that was her cooking thing. And she did that the whole year.
And during the latter part of the year, like we went there in May and let’s say like in September or something like that or October, they had like a little building outside with the screens all around, like I don’t know what you call them, they’re for mosquitoes. Anyway, we had a ramp on our side, we couldn’t see over the fence but if we had the ramp to put the vehicles on to change the oil and stuff like that, we could see over the wall. And we could see this building and one day we heard somebody yelling and crying and whatever. So we climbed up on that ramp and see what it was and I asked the two little Koreans that worked for us, I said, “What’s going on?” He said, “They’re going to operate the little boy.” Well, I said, “What’s he screaming about? Well, you see, they’ve got no anesthetic.” And he started to scream, there was four men holding him on a table sort of thing and they were holding him and they were going to start cutting him to operate on his leg or something. Gee whiz, he was screaming so much, we had to get out, we went inside the building, we couldn’t stand the yelling and screaming. So that was something. Later on though, but he was there the same amount of time I was. He was going home the same week I was going home. But it took a whole year to get him fixed up and whatever.
One day, this little fellow come over and asked me, he says, could I help him to learn English? I said, “Sure.” So he told me to go across the street behind the building, I couldn’t see it but there was a little school there. So we went and sat on the doorstep and I’d help him out with the … But he brought a friend the next day and ended up I had about a dozen kids there, teaching English. Geez. And it lasted about a couple of weeks and then they gave me a different job so I couldn’t go in the evenings. I used to do that in the evenings and help them out that way. But boy, they were sure telling each other, one another to go and learn something English.
They didn’t have restaurants but the year that I went there, they finally made a United Nations restaurant. That’s the only restaurant we were allowed to go outside of our quarters. We couldn’t eat at any little restaurants around there, we had to go to that United Nations restaurant. And you got ordinary food like you do in a restaurant here. That was nice, you know, you get a hamburger if you wanted one. But God, you weren’t supposed to go and eat for the food, the Korean food or nothing like that. Like same as blood donor, that little boy [the boy that was operated on at the hospital next to the barracks] needed blood, well, I had given blood 35 times so I went to see our doctor at home and he says, “You can’t go to the Koreans and give them blood because their needles may not be properly cleaned up and everything.” So he says, “You can’t go give them blood.”
I went on a holiday or a leave like a seven day leave to Tokyo and we had to go by train and then take a ferry up Pusan [city on south-east coast of the Korean peninsula]. So we got on the train, it didn’t cost nothing, we got a travel warrant that’s they call it, got on the train and it was run by the Americans, American soldiers were running the train. And we were going down, it was quite a ways there to the end of the country to get the ferry. And all at once, the train stopped real fast there and it just jerked everybody in there. So we were looking around and the train backed up a little bit and that was stopped and we couldn’t see anything around. Pretty soon, one of the guys that we knew was an American, he was working on the train, I says, “What’s going on?” He said, “We just hit a couple of young teenagers on the track and killed them.” Holy God. Oh yeah, we said, “Gee, that’s terrible and everything.” Oh, he says, “It happens every day, we kill one or two every day. They just walk on the tracks, they said, they don’t move.” So I said, “Well, what happens now?” Oh, he said, “They go over and pay the family $500 each for each one and that’s it.” And they just jump the train and took off. Holy God, that shook us.
Another thing that impressed me was, where this nun was, they called us one day, she called, we went to see her, she said, “Come on over this afternoon, there’s an American colonel that donated a sewing machine for the little girls, not to learn but to help them to make their clothes I suppose or something like that. So they’re going to put a little show on and you guys come on over and have a look, there won’t be that many people.” And there’s only about a dozen little girls because the Koreans, he told us, the Koreans don’t give out their boys, they keep the boys because they can grow up and go in the army and they give the money to their parents. But the little girls, they grow up to become prostitutes. So they looked after them there. They had all kinds of different hair colours like there was only one little blonde and all the rest were dark, you know, different colour of darkness though and their faces because it was mixed blood from, you know, mostly American soldiers I guess.
Anyway, we went to this little show that they put on, a little dance and the nun told us, she says, “Watch that little blonde. That little blonde, but the other little girls, they liked her so much, they didn’t want to let her do nothing, they do everything for her. And she’s really stupid, she can’t do nothing. So you watch.” Sure enough, they started doing their little dance and she stood in the middle and they were dancing all around here, she never moved at all, she just stood there.
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October 13, 2011
Transcriptionist: Wendy Neuhofer
The Memory Project: Tom Reginald Rappel
Tom Rappel received a certificate and medal of Remembrance from the Netherlands. Below left: the HMCS Haida.
Here is Tom Rappel speaking about his experiences in the Royal Canadian Navy in World War II. You can also visit The Memory Project for more stories.
Audio Transcript
I joined in 1942, up on Donnacona barracks up on Mountain Street [in Montreal]. I was 17, but I put my age up a year. All my friends, some older and some younger than me, they were joining up, so I figured I’d take my kick at the can too.
And so I’ve had a happy career with the service. I’ve been to sea but I got sick as hell. (laughs) That was just on the St. Lawrence River. But then I was drafted to a ship called the Niagara, HMCS Niagara. It was one of the first four stackers, that means four-funnel destroyers.
I was on her for a time and was drafted off of her and overseas where I joined a crew again. There were four tribal class destroyers. There was the Haida, the Huron, the Iroquois and the Athabaskan.
We were up in Russia [then part of the USSR], this time up there, 15 miles south of Murmansk and it was Christmas Day. And in the Navy, the youngest man on the ship becomes captain for a day. We’re talking about the seaman branch now. But then we come into the engine room branch…my leading stoker was a fellow by the name of Bob Scott. And he said, “We’ll make the young fellow here engineer officer for a day.” So this they did and that’s tradition too, eh, but they just changed it to suit themselves.
But anyway, when I went on the Haida, we called it the Hay-da but since I come to Ottawa, it’s the High-da. But nevertheless, we were out with the Athabaskan the night she was sunk, in that action. My captain was Harry DeWolf. And he was one of the most famous people known in the service. So other than that, that’s as far as I can take you on that one.
I left the Haida and went back to the railway, finished my apprenticeship, then I rejoined the Navy and was in for a term, in which it, it’s all there on my papers on my wall and so forth. And when I come here to the hospital, someone come up to me one day and said, “Congratulations.” I said, “For what?” It was a lady that said this. She said, “They just nominated you as vice president of the Veterans Council.” And that’s the job I’m doing now.
Timeline: Outstanding Women
No list of Canadian women's accomplishments could ever be definitive; we limited ourselves to ten moments honouring "firsts."
Jennie Trout is the first woman to earn an M.D.
The medical field of the 19th Century was dominated by men while women struggled for the right to practice. Encouraged by her husband, Jennie braved the pressures of entering a male discipline and pursued a medical career along with her friend Emily Stowe. They were the only women in lecture halls filled by jeering male students. Jennie eventually earned her M.D. in the United States on March 11th, 1875. Subsequently, she returned to Canada and passed an examination before the College of Physicians and Surgeons. After retiring, Jennie continued to build a place for women in the medical field. Her campaigning culminated in the opening of the Women's Medical College at Kingston on October 2, 1883. (Heritage Minutes courtesy of the Historica-Dominion Institute.)
Women serve as nurses in the Army, Navy and Air Force Medical Corps throughout the World Wars. On the homefront, women work at jobs normally reserved for men while they are absent.
Thanks to the work of activists like Nellie McClung, Manitoba becomes first province to give women the vote.
McClung was a feminist activist and fantastic public speaker known for her role in women's suffrage. In 1914, a group of women led by McClung petitioned Manitoba's parliament, requesting for the right to vote. They were declined by the Premier, Sir Rodmand Roblin. McClung used Roblin's arrogant refusal speech as inspiration for 'The Women's Parliament'. In the staged, mock parliament, men petitioned a female government for rights while the latter used Roblin's logic to turn them down. The humorous play successfully brought attention to McClung's causes. When T. C. Norris replaced Roblin as Premier, the former was presented with 40 000 signatures supporting the women's vote. A bill was subsequently introduced and passed unanimously in 1916, making Manitoba the first province to give women the vote.
Agnes Macphail is the first woman to be elected to the House of Commons.
Macphail was raised by farmers and was acutely aware of the issues they faced. She was elected to represent them in 1921 — the first woman elected to the federal government. No token female politician, her career in both federal and provincial politics was productive. Macphail fought tirelessly against a barrage of gender discrimination through which she had to constantly prove herself worthy. Even with this added pressure, Macphail championed issues such as worker's rights, prison reform, seniors' pension, and gender equity, making great headway in many areas.
First Olympic team including women participates in the Games.
The first of Canada's Olympic teams to include women participated in the track and field events at the Games in 1928. Women such as Bobbie Rosenfeld, Ethel Smith and Ethel Catherwood's great performances made Amsterdam one of the best year for female, Canadian Olympians to date. Rosenfeld and Smith won silver and bronze medals respectively in the 100 meter race and, along with Myrtle Cook and Jane Bell, set a world record and won gold medals at the 4x100 meter relay race.
The Famous Five, including Nellie McClung, appeal to the British Privy council to overturn the Supreme Court's decision on the legal definition of a 'person'. It is determined that the word 'person' does indeed include persons of the female gender.
The Montreal Dressmakers' Strike is organized by the International Ladies' Garment Workers' Union. The strike constitutes an important step forward in attaining workers' rights in Jewish Montreal.
After receiving several literary prizes throughout her career, Gabrielle Roy is first woman to become a member of the Royal Society of Canada.
Charlotte Whitton is elected Mayor of Ottawa. She is the first female mayor of a major metropolitan area in Canada.
Muriel McQueen Fergusson is the first woman to be appointed Speaker in the Senate.
Audrey McLaughlin is the first female party leader in Canada. She was at the front of Canada's New Democratic Party from 1989-1995.
Roberta Bondar, the first Canadian female astronaut, is launched into space.
Roberta Bondar, who is known for her extensive knowledge in various fields such as neurology, incredible intelligence and speaking skills, earned herself the chance to become the first neurologist and female astronaut to be launched into space in 1992 aboard the shuttle Discovery. She has since received many honours, including the Order of Canada, and was inducted into the Canadian Medical Hall of Fame.
Angela James is first Canadian woman to be inducted into the Hockey Hall of Fame.
Hockey star Angela James, who is often affectionately referred to as the 'Wayne Gretzky of women's hockey' was the first Canadian woman to be inducted into the Hockey Hall of Fame in 2010. Along with American Cammi Granato, James was part of the first women to take part in the induction ceremony in Toronto. She is known for her multiple wins at international levels, including her receipt of four gold medals at the world championships throughout the 1990s as well as her important role in promoting women's hockey. Her plaque in the Hall of Fame describes her as a 'Pioneer of the women's game'.
Timeline: The Underground Railroad
John Graves Simcoe, the Lieutenant Governor of Upper Canada, passed the Anti-Slavery Act, making it illegal to bring people into Upper Canada to be enslaved.
The United Kingdom passed the Slave Trade Act, which outlawed the slave trade in the British Empire, though not slavery itself.
Slavery in the British colonies was finally ended via the Emancipation Act, though it took several years for many slaves to be fully released from bondage.
The Fugitive Slave Act was passed in the United States as part of the Great Compromise of 1850 between the Union and the Confederate states. The act allowed slave masters to enter free, northern U.S. states and reclaim escaped slaves. This prompted an increased use of the underground railroad to get into Canada.
The Anti-Slavery Society of Canada was established, founded by journalist and future father of Confederation George Brown.
Uncle Tom's Cabin by Harriet Beecher Stowe, a very influential novel to the anti-slavery movement, came out.
The American Civil War began.
U.S. president Abraham Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation, which declared that all slaves in any of the rebellious Confederate states were free as of Jan. 1, 1863.
The Civil War came to an end when the Confederates surrendered in April. With the passing of the Thirteenth Amendment, slavery was finally abolished in United States.
Other online extensions:
Tommy Douglas Takes Mouseland
As Saskatchewan heads to the polls today, our choice for their most "game-changing" election should come as no surprise. It is, of course, the 1944 election when Tommy Douglas led the Co-operative Commonwealth Federation to its historic win.
The CCF was first formed in 1932, as Canadians looked for new political parties to alleviate the effects of the Great Depression. The CCF emerged as a social democratic party formed by a coalition of left-wing labour and farm organizations. Their formal platform – the Regina Manifesto – rejected capitalism and called for a planned, socialized economy. Although the CCF quickly saw success on the federal stage, electing 7 MPs in their first election, their greatest success occurred on the provincial level.
In 1944, CCF MP Tommy Douglas resigned his seat in parliament to lead Saskatchewan’s CCF party in their provincial election. Douglas, a former Baptist preacher, was a strong advocate for the CCF’s socialist ideals. An eloquent public speaker, Douglas delivered captivating speeches over the radio and to large groups. One of his most famous stories, Mouseland, was a critique of the Canadian political system. In his many speeches and public appearances, Douglas convinced the voters that his ideas weren't all that radical and that they were, in fact, logical.
Tommy Douglas led the CCF to a landslide win in Saskatchewan’s 1944 election, taking 47 of the 52 seats. Saskatchewan had elected the first socialist government in North America. Tommy Douglas won four more elections and remained Premier of Saskatchewan until 1961, when he resigned to become the national leader of the CCF’s successor, the New Democratic Party.
As Premier of Saskatchewan, Douglas ran an efficient government, even reducing the province’s debt by $20 million. He pioneered many social programs and economic reforms that would later be implemented in other provinces. In particular, he is often hailed as the “father of Medicare” for instituting Canada’s first system of universal, pre-paid health care.
The 1944 election marked a significant moment in both Saskatchewan’s and Canada’s history. It was Tommy Douglas’ vision and innovation that led to the creation of our modern healthcare system, the Bill of Rights, unemployment insurance, old age pensions, and many other social programs that Canadians enjoy today.
Resources
Much has been written about Tommy Douglas and the CCF. Here are some more resources that explore the profound impact that Douglas had on Saskatchewan and Canada.
The Saskatchewan Council for Archives and Archivists has put together an online exhibit about the 1944 election. You can look through newspaper headlines, campaign materials, and photos to learn more about this historic election.
The CBC Digital Archives has a number of Tommy Douglas' original speeches and interviews, as well as several news items exploring Douglas' legacy.
The Douglas-Coldwell Foundation has a YouTube page that's another great resource for original footage and videos relating to Tommy Douglas.
The National Film Board of Canada produced a short documentary on Tommy Douglas in 1986 called Tommy Douglas: Keeper of the Flame, which you can watch online.
Un-forgetting the Korean War
At first glance, the scenes at Winnipeg's Fairmont Hotel were those of a typical reunion. People with nametags were chatting, meeting rooms were set up with coffee and refreshments, and a makeshift bulletin board held messages from old friends looking to reunite. However, a closer look revealed that this event was much more than just an ordinary reunion.
Last week, the Korean Veterans Association of Canada held their final national meeting — “the Last Hurrah.” About 500 veterans who served either during the war (1950-1953) or during the peacekeeping phase (1953- 1956) made the trek to Winnipeg for the grand event.
The veterans had a busy schedule during their four day visit to Winnipeg. There were film screenings, tours to the Manitoba Legislature and CFB Shilo, a meet-and-greet, and a formal banquet, with many dignitaries including Chief of the Defence Staff General Walt Natynczyk.
Korean War veteran Kim Reynolds, who travelled from British Columbia, was overwhelmed by the event. “It’s brought together a lot of guys, I’ve never seen this many together before,” Reynolds said. “It should mean a lot to all of us that we’ve brought it to this stage.”
26,000 Canadians served in the Korean War, which began in 1950 when the Soviet-backed North Korea invaded South Korea. The newly-created United Nations supported South Korea and sent troops from member nations, including Canada. Despite having a weakened military as a result of the Second World War, Canada played a significant role in the war. The Princess Patricia’s Canadian Light Infantry was instrumental in blocking an offensive attack from the Chinese Communist Forces at the Battle of Kapyong. The unit was even awarded a United States Presidential Unit Citation in recognition of “outstanding heroism” and “exceptionally meritorious conduct.”
Yet the legacy of these soldiers, including the 516 who lost their lives, is unknown to many Canadians.
Nicknamed the "Forgotten War,” the events of the Korean War were overshadowed by the two World Wars. For many years, it was ignored by the media and even overlooked by historians. Fortunately, this is beginning to change and the war has received more attention in recent years. One initiative in particular will help the "Forgotten War" become less forgotten.
Staff from The Memory Project were at the reunion to help document the stories that were circulating the rooms. An initiative of The Historica-Dominion Institute, The Memory Project has already collected thousands of stories and photos of World War II veterans, which have been digitized and made available online. “The Last Hurrah” marked the beginning of a new phase to include the Korean War in The Memory Project.
The Memory Project booked interviews with veterans in advance, but found themselves scrambling to accommodate additional appointments. In three days, they conducted interviews with sixty veterans, and will be following up with more in the coming months. Veterans were also encouraged to bring photos, scrapbooks, medals or other mementos, which the Memory Project was able to digitize on-the-spot.
Jenna Misener, Manager of Programming with the Historica-Dominion Institute, says the archival process is one of her favourite parts of The Memory Project. “I get to look through all of the photographs and documents and actual things that the veterans have brought with them,” Misener says. “It’s like going back in time with them and when they’re looking at their photographs and talking through them you can really get a sense of their experience.”
History was in the air at the Fairmont and it is certain that many memories and stories were being rediscovered. Thanks to the work of The Memory Project and the enthusiastic veterans, this reunion doesn’t have to be the last hurrah — the stories and legacies of the Korean War will be preserved and shared with generations to come.
— Joanna Dawson
Uniting for Change in Postwar Ontario
Ernest Charles Drury, Premier of Ontario 1919 to 1923
In Ontario’s 1919 general election, residents elected a non-traditional third party to the Legislature – the first in the province’s history. The new party defeated William Hearst’s Conservative government, who led the province during the First World War – and all without having a designated party leader.
When the United Farmers of Ontario (UFO) was created in 1914, they didn’t anticipate forming the Provincial government just a few years later. In fact, they weren’t even a political party. Created to replace a collection of farm organizations that had collapsed in previous years, the UFO began as more of a lobbyist group to provide support to farmers. However, as the war progressed and economic conditions worsened from labour shortages and inflation, the UFO saw its membership increase. The turning point came in May of 1918 when the Federal government reneged on an agreement to exempt farmers from conscription. Already suffering from a labour shortage caused by the war's increased demand for production, thousands of farmers from Ontario, Quebec and Alberta organized a march to Ottawa in protest. The Federal government ignored their voices. Shortly after, the UFO organized a convention in Toronto where the future political party began to emerge.
When Ontario was faced with a general election in 1919, many people were dissatisfied with both the provincial and federal governments. Neither had been able to alleviate post-war unemployment and war veterans were angered by the lack of support they received after the war. Conditions were ripe for constituents to look to alternative parties.
Members of the UFO, in cooperation with the Independent Labour Party (ILP), began to run local campaigns. Without much direction or organization from UFO’s central office, candidates campaigned in rural areas on primarily agrarian issues. When the election results came in on October 20, 1919, history was made. The vote was divided between traditional Conservative and Liberal voters and the UFO won a plurality with 44 seats to form the Ontario government. The Conservatives were reduced to 25 seats from 77, while the Liberals lost two seats, falling to 28.
The UFO formed a coalition with the ILP, who had captured 11 seats, and elected former Liberal E.C. Drury as their leader and Ontario’s Premier. However, obtaining power proved easier than managing it. As time wore on, contradictions emerged between the UFO and the ILP, post-war problems seemed unsolvable and many, including Premier Drury, found it difficult to abandon their former party loyalties. Drury suffered a crushing defeat to the Conservatives in 1923 and the UFO voted to take the organization out of politics.
Despite the contradictions and problems of the Drury government and the UFO, their time in power was not without rewards and achievements. The UFO helped one of Canada’s greatest female leaders and social activist, Agnes Macphail, get elected to the Federal government. Macphail represented the rural Ontario riding of Grey South East for the United Farmers of Ontario in the federal election of 1921, becoming the first woman elected to Parliament. Thus began a long political career, during which Macphail championed for many causes, including worker's rights, gender equity and prison reform.
Also during his tumultuous term, Premier Drury provided a grant to two unknown researchers. The recipients were none other than Frederick Banting and Charles Best, who would go on to discover insulin.
Ontario’s election of 1919 was certainly a game-changer. It broke with the past and unknowingly provided groundwork for the future. The UFO’s success in the election demonstrated the power of cooperation and collective action, and laid the foundation for the third-party politics that emerged during the Great Depression.
Vimy 95th from Combat Camera
The Canadian Forces Combat Camera was on hand to document the Vimy 95th anniversary. Below are twenty-six images taken of the events. There are five videos in their B-roll section including speeches from Veterans Affairs Minister Steven Blaney and Governor General David Johnston. Combat Camera has eight other photo galleries depicting various Canadian Forces operations that you can peruse on their website.
All images are © Department of National Defence
War of 1812: Behind the scenes
Coming this Canadian Thanksgiving Monday (October 10th), PBS will be airing their two-hour documentary, The War of 1812, which uses stunning re-enactments, evocative animation, and the incisive commentary of key experts to reveal little-known sides of an important war.
From 1812 to 1815, Americans battled against the British, Canadian colonists, and Native warriors; the outcomes shaped the geography and the identity of North America, yet some Americans may only recognize it for the “Star-Spangled Banner.” The broadcast is accompanied by a companion book and website, as well as comprehensive bi-national educational resources.
Check your local listings for air times.
To learn more about the film,
we spoke with producer Larry Hott.
You can listen to the two-part podcast below.
In the first part of the interview, Larry talks about some of the opportunities and challenges of producing a film of this scale — from mediating historical debates to his newfound respect for reenactors.
In part 2 of the podcast, Larry shares his favourite moments of making the film and reflects on what he's learned, and what he hopes his audience will take away from the film.
War of 1812 Bicentennial Alliance
The Project Managers for each of Ontario's 7 tourism regions. This fun group is sure to put together many great events and programs in the coming years.
Plans for the War of 1812 commemorations are well underway and it can be hard to keep track of all the different events, projects, and memorials that are popping up.
In Ontario, the Ministry of Culture and Tourism created 7 different regions to help plan and coordinate various bicentennial activities in the province. Each region had a different experience during war and will have a unique story to tell during the commemorations.
Below, is a list of the regions with links to their websites, where you’ll find information about their history, upcoming events and special projects. Some of them have put together great introduction videos, so be sure to check them out!
Niagara
Located between Lake Erie and Lake Ontario and bordering New York, the Niagara region was one of the Americans' main campaigns to conquer Upper Canada. Fort George, which was the British headquarters during the war, was captured by the Americans in 1813 until it was retaken by the British seven months later. Other key events include the Battle of Queenston Heights in 1812, where Major General Isaac Brock was killed, and the Battle of Lundy's Lane, one of the deadliest battles of the war.
Website: Discover1812.com
Flickr: Flickr.com/photos/niagara1812/
You Tube: YouTube.com/Niagara1812
Facebook
Twitter: @Niagara1812
South West Ontario
This region encompasses one of the main frontiers of the war, the Detroit frontier, and stretches along Lake Erie, from Amherstburg to Chatham-Kent. It was in this area that General Brock and Chief Tecumseh met, and where together they launched a successful attack across the border at Fort Detroit on August 16, 1812. This region also includes the site where Tecumseh was killed at the Battle of the Thames, near Moraviantown.
Website: 1812ontario.ca
You Tube channel: YouTube.com/user/warof1812ontario
Western Corridor
Originally, there were only 6 tourist regions created for the War of 1812 commemorations. However, there was a great effort amongst community leaders and historians to have the Western Corridor included, as well. This region links the Detroit frontier and the Niagara region, along the north shore of Lake Erie. The region saw several key battles, including the British victory at the Battle of Stoney Creek, which is generally understood to be a turning point in the war. The area was also subject to many American raids, the most famous of them led by American General Duncan McArthur in 1814.
Website: WesternCorridor1812.com
St. Lawrence
This region covers the area around the St. Lawrence River in Eastern Ontario, from Cornwall to Kingston, the primary naval base on Lake Ontario. The river played a key role in the war, providing defense and a method of transportation for troops and supplies. War of 1812 heritage sites in this region include Crysler's Farm (which was submerged under water with the construction of the St. Lawrence Seaway), Fort Wellington, Fort Henry, and a plaque to mark the escape of HMS Royal George from an American fleet on November 9, 1812.
Website: Celebrate1812.ca
You Tube: YouTube.com/user/Celebrate1812
Facebook
Twitter: @Celebrate1812
City of Toronto
Although it was the capital of Upper Canada during the war, Toronto (or York, as it was known then), was not a main focus for American troops, who were more concerned with capturing more strategic bases. In 1813, however, American troops did invade York and pillaged homes and buildings, even burning down the capital's Parliament Buildings. They occupied York for 6 days until they abandoned it. Today, Fort York National Historic Site is Canada's largest collection of buildings from the War of 1812. The City of Toronto is planning a major revitalization of the site as part of their commemoration activities.
Website: Toronto.ca/1812
Facebook: Fort York National Historic Site
Twitter: @FortYork
Southern Georgian Bay
A lesser-understoood region of the War of 1812 is the Southern Georgian Bay area. However, the area served as a key communication and transportation route, especially to Fort Michilimackinac in present-day Michigan, which the British captured early in the war. This area is also home to the HMS Nancy, a British-supply ship forced into service during the war. When the Nancy was attacked in 1814, the British chose to set her on fire, rather than allow her to be captured by the Americans. The wreck was discovered in 1925 and is now displayed at the Nancy Island Historic Site in Wasaga Beach. The Southern Georgian Bay War of 1812 Bicentennial Committee is taking the overall lead in the regions planning for the 2012-2014 Bi-centennial.
Website: 1812bicentennial.com
They're still working on their social media accounts, but they've got a sense of humour about it!
Algoma
This region includes the area around Sault Ste. Marie and the historic St. Mary's River, which connects Lake Superior and Lake Huron and separates Michigan and Ontario. From this region, the British launched one of their earliest attacks during the war — the capture of Fort Michilimakinac.
Website: Algoma1812.ca
War of 1812: The Historical Experts
British in firing formation (re-enactment). Photo: Courtesy of David Litz; WNED-TV, Buffalo/Toronto and Florentine Films/Hott Productions Inc.
If the PBS documentary The War of 1812 piques your curiousity, you may want to learn more from the experts involved with the project.
Interviews were conducted with twenty-six leading authorities on the war — American, British, Canadian and First Nations historians — presenting important accounts and research.
All book titles (except The Corps of Colonial Marines: Black freedom fighters of the War of 1812) link to Chapters-Indigo.ca. When you visit Chapters-Indigo via our website links and make any purchase, Canada’s History receives a commission that supports our programs.
The Experts
- Walter Borneman is the author of several books, including 1812: The War That Forged a Nation, The French and Indian War: Deciding the Fate of North America, and Alaska: Saga of a Bold Land.
- René Chartrand is a Canadian historian and former senior curator with National Historic Sites of Canada for nearly three decades; he is now a freelance writer and historical consultant. His book Forts of The War of 1812 will be coming out in February 2012.
- Ronald J. Dale is the War of 1812 Project Manager for Parks Canada. He is the author of The Invasion of Canada and The Fall of New France, and is a noted authority on the Canadian involvement in the war.
- Doug DeCroix is the former director of Research and Special Projects, Old Fort Niagara and current Executive Editor of Western New York Heritage Magazine.
- James Elliot is a Canadian journalist and author of many works on the War of 1812, including Strange Fatality: The Battle of Stoney Creek.
- Donald Fixico, a Shawnee Native American, is the Distinguished Foundation Professor of History at Arizona State University, and author of Treaties with American Indians: An Encyclopedia of Rights, Conflicts and Sovereignty and Rethinking American Indian History.
- Dianne Graves is a Canadian historian and author of In the Midst of Alarms: The Untold Story of Women of the War of 1812 and a member of Ensign Heritage, a historical consulting group.
- Donald E. Graves is the director of Ensign Heritage, a historical consulting group, and he is an internationally recognized expert on the military history of the War of 1812. He wrote the introductory essay in The Incredible War of 1812: A Military History and was author of Where Right and Glory Lead: The Battle of Lundy’s Lane, 1814.
- Major John R. Grodzinski is Professor of History at the Royal Military College of Canada and author of The War of 1812: An Annotated Bibliography.
- Donald R. Hickey is a professor of history at Wayne State College, Wayne, Nebraska. He is the author of Don’t Give Up the Ship!: Myths of the War of 1812 and The War of 1812: A Forgotten Conflict.
- Jim Hill is manager of Heritage Operations at the Niagara Parks Commission in Niagara Falls, Ontario.
- Rick Hill, a Tuscarora-Mohawk Native, is an artist, a professor of history, and an expert on the tribal history of New York State and Ontario.
- Andrew Lambert is Laughton Professor of Naval History at King’s College University of London, and author of War at Sea in the Age of Sail. He is an expert on British trade and naval history.
- A. Jack Langguth is professor emeritus of journalism at the Annenberg School for Communication, University of Southern California at Los Angeles, and the author of Union: 1812.
- Vince Leggett is the founder and president of Blacks of the Chesapeake Foundation. He is an expert on African American participation in privateering and the Colonial Marines.
- Robert Malcolmson was a Canadian naval historian of the War of 1812, and the author of Capital in Flames: The American Attack on York, 1813 (read the Canada's History review). Mr. Malcolmson died in 2009.
- Robert Miller, a Shawnee Native American, is a professor of law at Lewis and Clark College, and the author of Native America: Discovered and Conquered.
- Anthony Pitch is a lecturer, tour guide and the author of The Burning of Washington: The British Invasion of 1814. He is a prominent expert on the British campaign in the Chesapeake.
- Sir Christopher Gerald Prevost is the great-great-great-grandson to George Prévost, Governor-in-Chief of British North America during the War of 1812. He wrote the foreword to The Incredible War of 1812: A Military History.
- Scott S. Sheads is a ranger, historian and historic weapons officer at Fort McHenry, Baltimore, Maryland. He is co-author of The War of 1812 in the Chesapeake.
- John Sugden is the author of Tecumseh, a biography of the Shawnee war chief. He is an expert on Native American history in North America, a lecturer, and holds several degrees.
- Victor Suthren is a Canadian naval expert and author of The War of 1812.
- Wolf Thomas is a professional actor, and a re-enactor and interpreter focusing on the Niagara region in the War of 1812.
- Peter Twist is the director of Military Heritage, a historical military uniform and arms supply company. He has served as consultant on numerous film and theater projects (including Pirates of the Caribbean: Curse of the Black Pearl), and is an expert on the military history of the War of 1812.
- John Weiss is a British historian and the author of The Corps of Colonial Marines: Black Freedom Fighters of the War of 1812.
- Patrick Wilder is a retired historian with the New York State Office of Parks, Recreation and Historic Preservation. He is the author of The Battle of Sackett’s Harbor, 1813.
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