Archive for September, 2004

by John Lee It is 8.30 a.m. on a chilly September in 1940. While Londoners struggle to mop-up after yet another overnight Blitzkrieg bombardment that reduced many homes to twisted rubble, Prime Minister Winston Churchill is propped up in bed in his favourite gold and green dressing gown, puffing on the first of the day’s dozen or so cigars. But this is no ordinary lie-in. Two secretaries sit hunched over their notebooks on either side of the bed, straining to take dictation from the British leader’s famously [...]

Story and photos by Ray Dick The huge rotor on the military’s new Cormorant helicopter thumped with a soft rhythm in the hot, still air at 8 Wing, Canadian Forces Base Trenton as engines and systems were tested by the crew of Tiger 913. The tests were in preparation for an early [...]

It’s a cool summer morning and you are gliding across the still water. Just above you is a layer of mist that is slowly vanishing. You take a deep breath and smile: For the next few hours it’s just you and your canoe. Not everyone shares this passion, but recreational canoeing remains a popular Canadian activity. In fact, it’s estimated there are more than two million “active” paddlers in Canada. That estimate, [...]

Nestled in the southwest corner of the Yukon, Kluane National Park and Reserve is largely a land of mountains, rock and icefields. But these splendid features are not ordinary landmarks. Everything about Kluane seems big. At 21,980 square kilometres, it is nearly four times larger than Banff National Park. It is home to the towering St. Elias Mountain Range, including Mount Logan, the highest mountain in Canada and the second [...]

The early decades of the 20th century were a time of momentous change for women in Canada. During World War I, women were not recruited as official war artists. Instead, female artists were limited to commissions on subjects deemed appropriate for women to witness. For example, women working in the munition factories was an acceptable theme. Dorothy Stevens was one of a few remarkable women who did receive a commission—in September 1918—from the Canadian War Memorials Fund, (CWMF), and she subsequently created six etchings of the Canadian home front during WW I. Born in Toronto in 1888, she had a father who [...]

Das Blutbad the blood bath. The consummate German designation for those murderous battles of the Somme. During the last six months of 1916, over that part of the French countryside aptly named Santerre, a contraction of the French words sang (blood) and terre (land), the Allies suffered more than 620,000 casualties, including 24,029 Canadians. And [...]