Archive for January, 2006

The Arctic Archipelago, explored at great cost by Britain, had been virtually presented as a gift to Canada in 1880. Some cabinet ministers would have preferred to decline the gift, but Sir Hector Langevin had argued […]

No naval officer was more integral to the early years of the Canadian navy than Walter Hose. From His Majesty’s Canadian Ship Rainbow searching for glory off California in 1914, to command […]

One of the original reasons for mounting Operation Husky, the July 1943 invasion of Sicily, was the hope that the conquest of Italian territory would hasten the fall of Mussolini’s government. On July 25, […]

Much of the Royal Canadian Air Force’s military flying after World War I had little application to preparations for WW II. A previous article in this series demonstrated that “army co-operation” training […]

In a time of conflict, turmoil and terrorism around the globe, the Year of the Veteran struck a chord with Canadians. It resounded across the land in 2005, evoking an appreciation of Canada’s […]

In my watercolour set, Payne’s grey is always the colour I run out of first. It is the perfect pigment for Legion blazers and overcast skies. And so when my plane slips through the […]

For the Canadians who served in places like Ortona, Caen, Kap’yong, Nicosia, Bihac and Kandahar, the 2005 national Remembrance Day ceremony in Ottawa was a historical moment in an important year, the Year of the Veteran.It […]

Their wandering spirits have been called home at last. Their remains may still lie in European soil, but–after a special ceremony on the very soil where they fought–the spirits of hundreds of […]

Heading up Highway 63 out of Fort McMurray, Alta., you are a witness to the frenzied action that is all about the oilsands. Semis, flatbeds, buses, pickup trucks and vans everywhere and gargantuan 400-tonne Caterpillar dump trucks moving with purpose […]

Quietly, and almost without notice, the great Canadian military experiment in officer education in 1997 is in danger.

Last fall, CANFORGEN (Canadian Forces General Order) 156/05, issued by the Department of National Defence’s Assistant Deputy Minister (Human Resources-Military), announced a new “continuing […]