Military Milestones

Alcohol and the Navy has a long history together. A history that has influenced military culture and even pop culture.

Once labelled a rebel without a cause, Riel’s caricature in Canadian textbooks has changed since the time of his execution in 1885.

Laurier was admired, even by his political opponents, for his mastery of compromise and unceasing work to unite English and French Canadians.

In 1916, the city was in the throes of one of its coldest winters when the fire alarm was sounded at 8:57 p.m. In just a few hours, Canada’s seat of power was a pile of smouldering ruins.

Tommy Prince honed his early tracking skills to deadly perfection. “He used to carry a pair of moccasins in his bag with him…he was deathly quiet,” recalled a comrade. “The Germans thought he was a ghost or a devil. They could never figure out how he passed the lines and the sentries.”

The citizens of Port Arthur, Ont., (now part of Thunder Bay) even offered $1,000 in prize money if the ship named for their town destroyed a Nazi submarine.
In January 1943, the sailors of HMCS Port Arthur earned that prize.