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The Boer War started the year John McCrae graduated from the University of Toronto’s medical school. He had served as an officer in the military reserves and had a romantic view of war, partly gleaned from Rudyard Kipling’s vivid accounts of war as British adventure.... -
Most of us have experienced bad winters—record-breaking temperatures, snow up to the roof, winters that refuse to end. But few of us have known winters as bad as those of Samuel de Champlain. The winter of 1604-05 was spent at Sainte-Croix. It was extremely cold,... -
When Newfoundland Joined Confederation 11:59 p.m., March 31, 1949 They were the last to join the party, and not everyone wanted to join. A narrow majority—52 per cent—voted to become the 10th province of Canada. On April 1, Newfoundlanders woke up as Canadians and Joey... -
I landed in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, for the 32nd Royal Commonwealth Ex-Services League (RCEL) Conference on June 25, arriving to a midnight traffic jam, horns beeping and impatient motorcycles threading between cars. It is a sprawling metropolis of seven million with a vibrant nightlife, and... -
WAR SHAPED CANADA. Those three words do not often occur to Canadians living in our peaceable kingdom, but they are surely true. The future of British North America was decided on the Plains of Abraham in 1759 and confirmed during the War of 1812 in which... -
Book and cigar in hand, John McCrae relaxes at the holiday home of friends at Kennebunkport, Maine, where he spent a vacation in September 1903. Guelph Civic Museum/M1968X.436.3 A century ago, Canadian medical officer John McCrae saw “every horror that war had,” including the...
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Berton’s correspondent
Lester Giffin was a private with the 85th Battalion at the Battle of Vimy Ridge in 1917. In the years after that momentous battle, he felt its importance hadn’t been recognized by the general public, and in 1982, at the age of 89, he decided to remedy this by writing about Vimy himself. Typing...
