Archive for 2004

by Ray Dick The Mounties are there with their scarlet tunics and Stetson hats, the wail of the bagpipes echoes through the sculpted gardens of a posh resort, a huge cake with a Canadian Maple Leaf takes centre place as some 500 celebrants listen to patriotic speeches and mingle with food and drink in what would seem a typical Canada Day celebration. The difference at this July 1 event, however, is that it is in Colorado Springs, Colo., home of Norad, the joint Canada-U.S. aerospace defence command, and the celebrants [...]

by Ray Dick It’s a short flight from Denver, Colo., to Colorado Springs, and at first glance there is little to indicate that this community nestled on the eastern edge of the Rocky Mountains is anything but a popular destination for tourists to experience the attractions of this high desert country. But a different scene unfolds as the plane loses altitude to land at this expansive and ultra-modern civilian airport. On the southern outskirts is the busy Peterson Air Force Base, headquarters for Norad, the joint Canada-U.S. aerospace defence command, [...]

by Norman Brown The involvement of Canadian Forces in the former Yugoslavia is winding down, bringing to a close an eventful chapter in our military history that saw more than 40,000 Canadians serve in the theatre of operations. The most dangerous and dramatic episode in that chapter was the 1993 Medak Pocket incident, in which Canadian soldiers, trying to keep warring sides separated, themselves came under attack. The Canadians’ response involved them [...]

by Stephen J. Thorne My fixer Manilay never ceased to surprise me. He had lied about his age, it turned out, to get the job working for me translating and attempting to overcome whatever obstacles my living and working in Afghanistan for 81/2 of the past 12 months would present. Manilay was just 18 during my second stint with the Canadian army in Kabul, but for what I [...]

Imagine you’re the curator of a huge museum, full of so many precious works that most of them haven’t even been catalogued. Yet even as you’re racing to document and interpret them, vandals are destroying some of them with graffiti and thieves are carting others away. The ones that remain are slowly fading before your eyes—and there’s not a thing you can do to preserve them. That, in a nutshell, is the conundrum facing the archaeologists [...]

Paraskeva Clark believed the art of a nation is not made by a few elite artists of the time, but by the many who give us variety in subject, composition, technique and ideology. Her beliefs came naturally. Born in St. Petersburg, Russia, in 1898, Clark studied at the Free Studio. Widowed in her early 20s, she moved to Paris with her infant son. When her boy [...]

The Battle of Vimy Ridge, which historian George Nasmith called “probably the most brilliant success of the war” on the British front, was sandwiched between the actions of two other feats in the spring of 1917 for which Canadians earned the Victoria Cross. Frederick Maurice Watson Harvey was decorated with the VC for “most conspicuous bravery and devotion to duty” for leading a cavalry charge on the village of Guyencourt, France, on March 27, 1917. On May [...]

Those who got in at the right time made fortunes, literally overnight. And it all came from farming—farming with a furry twist. The name of the game was fox farming or ranching, and for several years it remained the hottest industry on Princ e Edward Island. The late 19th and early 20th centuries brought hard economic times to many Islanders. Some 30,000 residents left the province between 1870 and 1900. By 1924, the population had shrunk [...]

In 1919-20, the British government presented hundreds of airplanes and associated equipment to several of its dominions. In Canada and Australia, these assets enabled nascent domestic air forces to be established and pioneering flights conducted. This Imperial Gift arose from motives both altruistic and self-serving on both sides. During most of World War I, Canadian cabinet ministers studiously ignored aviation. At least 25,000 Canadians had joined the British flying services, but [...]

Part 5 As war clouds gathered over Europe in July 1914, the Royal Canadian Navy’s only East Coast ship—HMCS Niobe—lay mouldering alongside the dockyard in Halifax. More than twice the size of His Majesty’s Canadian Ship Rainbow and requiring 700 officers and men, the RCN’s flagship was simply too big and too expensive to operate in the grim years prior to 1914. Moreover, unlike the West Coast, which was half a world away from [...]