Archive for January, 2007

From 1928 to 1952, interrupted only by World War II, Canadian National Steamships operated a fleet of five luxury liners, sailing from eastern Canadian ports to Bermuda, the West Indies, British Honduras and British Guyana, carrying thousands of […]

It didn’t take long for The Royal Canadian Legion to establish its presence in the community of Kanata in the western suburbs of Ottawa. Legion House–the organization’s brand new national headquarters–officially opened its doors in September, […]

Historians have tended to treat the battle for the Moro River–fought in Italy between Dec. 6 and 10, 1943–as a prelude to the better known struggle in the streets of Ortona. However, at the time, the battle for the Moro was seen as an […]

It is conventional wisdom that the Allies entered into World War II unprepared. There is a kernel of truth in that: things might have been better. Certainly the strength of the Royal Canadian Navy at the time was not what the navy or the government […]

A look around the globe confirms that systematic and scheduled air transport in this country lagged far behind that of other countries. The United States had a network of transcontinental airlines by 1932. Notwithstanding the establishment of Trans-Canada […]

We hadn’t expected gourmet Hungarian goulash served up on Royal Doulton china. But at the Cape Scott light station on the remote northwestern tip of Vancouver Island–a place that is normally engulfed in wet […]

“If disaster be inevitable, make the best of it, is what Confucius is popularly supposed to have advised.

No doubt Confucius said nothing of the sort, but during the Cold War that sentiment seemed, to many of us, to be the guiding […]

“You know dear, we never thought of divorce. We thought of murder, but never divorce,” giggled Lena Condon, a wee war bride originally from Ireland. It is Nov. 6 and she is one of approximately 225 brides, and approximately 150 family members, […]

“They all died doing the job they wanted to do. I want you to take a minute just to think about that, and understand that we want the whole world to have what we have in Canada. All right, guys?”

Master Corporal Kirk Dumaresque, the veteran speaking […]

The weather could hardly have been worse this year at the national Remembrance Day ceremony, but it didn’t seem to matter. It was bitterly cold and raining hard, but people still came by the thousands to honour the men and women who fought–and […]