Archive for November, 1998

In 1982, the first blue box hit the curb in Kitchener, Ont., and shortly thereafter the initiative for recycling waste material spread across Canada. As the three Rs–Reuse, Recycle and Reduce–became catchwords of the environmental movement, Canadians underwent a change in attitude. Many materials previously thought of as trash were recycled rather than thrown away. In fact, what happened in the 1980s was strikingly similar to the recycling fervor that occurred much earlier during WW II. Early in 1941, the federal government launched [...]

Paddling down the Peace River in northern Alberta, Max Finkelstein is on the last stretch of an overland journey from the British Columbia coastal fishing village of Bella Coola to Fort Chipewyan on Lake Athabasca. It’s July and Finkelstein is paddling on behalf of the Canadian Heritage Rivers System on a route taken by Alexander Mackenzie in 1793. The CHRS marketing and publicity officer sees the trip as a voluntary pilgrimage of being Canadian and as a journey to boost publicity for Canadian rivers, in particular a heritage river system that so far includes 24 designated rivers and seven nominated rivers. [...]

Florence Wyle’s bronze sculptures depict women and men at work on the home front. From top to bottom: Woman With Adapter; Furnace Man. For sculptor Florence Wyle, WW I brought welcome relief from chronic poverty. It came in the form of a commission from the Canadian War Memorials Fund, a private project run by Lord Beaverbrook that employed artists to depict the war. Between 1918 and 1919, Wyle produced a number of bronze sculptures and most of them depict women at work on the home front. The Canadian War Museum holds nine of these and they range in height from 21 to [...]

by Tom MacGregor Legion Magazine is pleased to present a four-part series that takes a close-up look at today’s Canadian Armed Forces. We begin with an overview on how the Department of National Defence is attempting to cut costs while maintaining a combat-ready force. Reflecting on a career that began more than 30 years ago, Brigadier-General Jean-Michel Comtois notes, “I don’t think young people today going into the military have the same expectations as they did when I first joined. When I was first getting in, things didn’t change.” But life at Canada’s Department of National Defence is indeed changing. It’s changing rapidly, [...]

The ongoing debate over the role of Bomber Command in WW II generally ignores the contribution made to the direct defeat of the German army. If the role of heavy bombers in Normandy is discussed the emphasis is on the bombing of Caen or the casualties inflicted on our own troops by short bombing. The reality is that Bomber Command and the United States 8th Air Force played a major role in the Allied victory in Normandy, a role long overdue for recognition.The idea of using heavy bombers in close support of the land battle developed in mid-June 1944 when [...]