Features

Rick Hillier is still grinning, even if just barely. After more than three years at the head of Canada’s armed forces and at the centre of relentless media attention and political controversy over the war in Afghanistan, Chief of the Defence Staff General Rick Hillier, Canada’s sometimes embattled top soldier, remains determined and steadfastly optimistic.

Hillier is optimistic not only about the mission in Afghanistan, where he says there is progress every day, even if it is slow and incomplete, but also about the future of the Canadian Forces, which he says is finally becoming an organization that its members […]

I can remember the wounded, coming out of battle in Europe. We—the members of 14th Field Ambulance of the 3rd Canadian Infantry Division—were among the first to treat them. There were men from all ranks, and sometimes friend and foe would arrive in the same ambulance. Some wept while others were silent, suffering from shock. Many waited quietly, and often we would be with them for only a few minutes—intensely close as men ever get to men—before they would slip away and be gone. Part of them became part of us, and through the years I have found myself […]

The bleak quietness of William MacDonnell’s canvases is strangely threatening, and this is quite deliberate. The scenic painting titled Tragedy On A Country Road marks a place where Canadian soldiers, while driving, hit a landmine in the former Yugoslavia. Even though the viewer cannot help but pick up on the threat, it is obscure and hidden much like the landmines our soldiers often encounter while overseas.

At first glance, MacDonnell’s work is idyllic, with no signs of violence. What appears as a quiet winter landscape in the artwork titled In A Forest Near Smolensk is in fact the same place […]

It is decision time for Canada’s political and military leaders. And it is no easy question they have to answer. Indeed, it is a decision that could cost many lives. The question is this: what role will Canada next take on in NATO’s effort to stabilize Afghanistan?

With the end of Canada’s three-year commitment to its leading role in Kandahar province coming up in early 2009, Ottawa has in recent months been buzzing with debate about what should happen next.

While there are many options—everything from continuing the current combat role to complete withdrawal—the most often mentioned new role is one […]

Finding Bacteria’s Sweet Tooth

Employing nanotechnology, which uses particles one billionth of a metre in size, researchers at the University of Toledo in Ohio have devised a new means of capturing bacteria—by catering to their “sweet tooth.”

Many bacteria launch their infections after latching onto carbohydrates (sugars) on human cell surfaces. Dr. Xuefei Huang, an associate professor of chemistry, and colleagues from the department of civil engineering, coated some magnetic nanoparticles with a sugar that is particularly attractive to E. coli, the bacteria responsible for many cases of food poisoning. The ‘bugs’ just ate it up.

Within five minutes researchers, using a […]

Christopher R.W. Nevinson, one of the earliest war artists, created images of World War I that explored the personal and global consequences of war. While one early painting was censored for its unflinching portrayal of death, others portrayed close-ups of wounded and worn soldiers; still others were distant landscapes that spoke to the industrial growth of the period and how that changed the face of war.

The artist was born in 1889 in London, England. His parents were well-known journalists—his father an author and war correspondent, his mother a writer and suffragette. Unlike many of his peers, Nevinson’s family supported […]

Almost from the moment the camera was invented, men sought to take it aloft. The first aerial photograph—taken from a balloon over Paris—was made in 1858. Armies investigated the new technology, and in 1883 Captain Henry Esdale, Royal Engineers, photographed the Halifax Citadel from an unmanned balloon tethered 1,450 feet above the site—the first aerial photograph taken in Canada.

The limitations of balloons as camera platforms were evident. If tethered they overlooked a limited area. If set free they traversed an unpredictable track. The development of the airplane solved the problem by allowing the camera to roam or follow a […]

Contrary to what some historians suggest, the Royal Canadian Navy’s ambitious plans in late 1940 for a navy built around fleet-class destroyers and cruisers were not out of sync with developments in the war. In fact, even as the Canadian naval staff planned to acquire cruisers and modern fleet-class destroyers, the German pocket battleship Scheer attacked Allied convoys just east of the Grand Banks.

In November, in one of the dramatic moments of the war at sea, Scheer sank the armed merchant cruiser Jervis Bay while attacking convoy HX 84. By December, the heavy cruiser Admiral Hipper was trolling the […]

When Lieutenant-General E.L.M. “Tommy” Burns took command of 1st Canadian Corps in March 1944 he was briefed on plans for the forthcoming offensive in Italy’s Liri Valley by the commander of 8th Army, General Oliver Leese. Two options were considered. If British 13 Corps broke the Gustav and Hitler Lines, the Canadians would pass through using Highway 6, the main road to Rome. If 13 Corps was stopped short, Burns would be responsible for the Hitler Line and the subsequent breakout across the Melfa River to Ceprano and Frosinone. Major-General Chris Vokes’ 1st Infantry Division would attack […]

They sit, majestic, on the quiet surface of Sproat Lake on the road from Parksville to Ucluelet on Vancouver Island. Waves gently lap their hulls and turn the sunshine into dances on the underside of their massive wings. Two monstrous red and white flying boats, the largest ever in service, are the queens here. But that moniker is shattered whenever their four Wright R3350 engines roar with life. “They’re certainly not belles of the ball,” says Wayne Coulson, Chief Executive Officer of The Coulson Group, whose company Coulson Flying Tankers is the airplanes’ new owners.

Indeed not. As serene and […]