Posts Tagged ‘Library and Archives Canada’

The popular Lest We Forget program operated by Library and Archives Canada (LAC) has been given new life with a partnership announced Nov. 8 with the Canadian Urban Libraries Council and the Canadian War Museum. Under the program, students have been able to come to the National Library in Ottawa and pore over original documents of those who served in the First World War with the help of trained Library and Archives Canada staff. The students then use that information to write biographies or other assignments on the people they have studied (Lest We Forget Project Brings Names To Life, July/August). “The [...]

His name was Alfred Guibault, and he lived near the Ottawa River in Aylmer, Que. He was a private, and he died horribly during the fighting for Regina Trench in 1916. Ninety-two years after the First World War the circumstances of his service and the circumstances of thousands of others who served are available for all to see—but only if you want to see. Adam Gutoskie wanted to see. The Grade 11 student from D’Arcy McGee High School in Gatineau, Que., was one of several students who earlier in the school year made use of a popular learning experience through the [...]

There were not as many as in the past, but the Canadian veterans who returned to the Netherlands this year seemed to be as wildly welcomed as they were 65 years ago. Back then, in 1945, the Dutch people were starving. They had been living under increasingly harsh German occupation for five years and had seen their neighbours rounded up and taken off to uncertain fates. That all ended when Canadian forces liberated the country at a cost of more than 7,600 fallen soldiers and countless others wounded. Still, it is amazing to see how the gratitude continues, not just from those [...]

It’s Tuesday morning, 8:25 a.m. to be exact, and seven-year-old Grace Ashworth is standing in the secretary’s office at Donald Fraser Memorial School in Plaster Rock, N.B. O Canada has just been sung throughout the school and so everyone is standing. Glancing down at a small piece of paper between her fingers, Grace, who is in Grade 2, clears her throat and then speaks into the school’s public address system. “Today we are going to honour and remember the following soldier who died while serving our country in World War II. Sergeant Roy Wintfield Vickery, Dec. 15, 1943. Could you please [...]