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The twisted remains of the 1907 Quebec Bridge collapse. Spanning the St. Lawrence River near Quebec City, the massive Quebec Bridge has a history of triumph and tragedy. Completed in 1917 at a cost of more than $22 million, it is the [...]

In September 1924, more than 3,000 excited children gathered at Exhibition Park in Toronto to meet a kindly gentleman who was known across Canada as the Picnic King, the Summer Santa Claus or the Orphans’ Friend. Each child who visited the park that day received an orange, some peanuts and candy, a large scoop of ice cream and a thick slice of cake. The children also came away from the picnic with a nickel and a “shin-plaster”. The latter was the name [...]

Royal tours Of Canada are normally associated with official receptions, visits to public institutions, speeches, state balls, formal luncheons and fancy banquets. Besides such formalities, the itinerary usually offers the royal visitor an opportunity to participate in field sports and other diversions for pleasure and recreation. The early royal tours of our country–those of 1860, 1901 and 1919–were no exception as the inclusion of hunting, fishing and fast-paced rafting allowed royal visitors a chance to escape from their hectic public duties. In 1860, [...]

Tourists visiting the New Richmond area in Quebec’s Gaspé Peninsula may come upon Stanley House, a spacious summer residence nestled among the trees just west of the village. Located near the mouth of the Grande-Cascapédia–a premier salmon fishing river renowned for its annual run of large fish–Stanley House is a reminder of a time over a century ago when successive governors general enjoyed free fishing privileges in the river’s famous pools. In 1879, the Canadian government granted the fishing rights to His Excellency, [...]

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 [...]