The military history of Canada during the Second World War[1] begins with the German invasion of Poland on 1 September 1939. While the Canadian Armed Forces were eventually active in nearly every theatre of war, most combat was centred in Italy,
Late May brought sun and warmth to the bordertown of Beaver Creek, Yukon. Sid was already back working hard at the Visitor Information Centre. He could feel the season was going to be a good one. Sid had come a long way from his childhood in northern Netherlands during the end of the Second World …
Genevieve Fleming is counting on Whitehorse audiences to take in the upcoming Guild Theatre production, even if just to indulge in some cold-weather Schadenfreude. In one sense, the Vancouver-based director suggested in an interview, staging French existentialist Jean-Paul Sartre’s 1944 play, No Exit, is like holding a mirror up to our own society. “We, the …
The Japanese Canadian Association of Yukon (JCAY) recognized the 30th anniversary of the success of the Redress campaign in 1988.
Wren Brian was just 10 years old when the first X-Men movie came out in 2000. The film’s opening scene, set in the infamous Auschwitz concentration camp in Poland, triggered a fascination with the Nazi Holocaust that remains with her today. Until a single one-hour history lesson in Grade 12, however, the Whitehorse-born playwright had …
It almost appears as if one of the great tourism RV destinations, Haines Road & Alaska Highway, happened by design—but it didn’t.
At the age of 82, Peter Steele says he has very little memory of his own parents. That’s partly why he decided a few years ago to write his autobiography. “I didn’t want my own kids to able to say the same,” he explains. “I thought I had enough interesting stories that I’d like them …
Bestselling Canadian author Lawrence Hill pursues a lifelong interest in African diaspora narratives. As a part of the research for a book he’s writing about the contribution of African American soldiers to the construction of the Alaska Highway, Hill is travelling the Highway from northern B.C. through the Yukon. His first Yukon stop was in …
I am not one who likes to read dry historical tomes. I like to absorb my history through the sugar coated pill of historical fiction, written by an author whose research is meticulous. And in this genre, Louis de Bernieres is a master. His works include books such as Birds Without Wings and Captain Corelli’s Mandolin. …
“It’s a 1942 International,” Sid tells me as we are standing by a truck whose yellow paint is slowly chipping away with age. The truck’s original grey colour has been exposed underneath the bright yellow. Its large body and tires tell us it was a truck built for working in rough terrain. “It’s a six …
Mark Zuehlke grew up in the Okanagan, hearing tales of Remittance Men – those eccentric British immigrants sent here in the late 19th century by their families who didn’t know what else to do with them. They were called Remittance Men because of the funds they received from their families to support them. The funds …
Lucile Hunter was an intrepid Yukon pioneer. Just 35 years after slavery was abolished in 1863 in the United States, she and her husband, Charles, joined the stampede to the Klondike from the US in 1897. As black Americans, they hoped to trade the cruelties of their homeland for a frontier that promised equality and …
Mark Zuehlke was a writer-in-residence at Berton House in 2003. At the time he had just finished several books on the history of the Canadian Forces actions in Italy during World War II and had brought along copious file boxes full of material for his work on the D-Day offensive on the other side of …
In 1943 Operation Husky was put into motion. Canadian Soldiers travelled deep into the Sicilian countryside to fight against the Nazi presence that had been established there. More than 500 Canadian Soldiers lost their lives during the campaign in Sicily. The cemetery in Agira, Sicily is not a well-known place to be visited in the …
Germany: a land of farms and old cities, and the destination of my travels every two years. It is a land with a past. Most towns here still hold scars of war in the form of bunkers that are sprawled throughout the country. A reminder of what once was. One such reminder is a tree. …
I have been in the wilderness of the Mackenzie Mountains for six weeks, and have decided to begin a diary. It’s maybe not the right time to start one, but now that I’m not quite as busy and not nearly as tired at the end of the day, I’ll begin one anyway so that I …
How do you relate to someone after you discover they’ve committed monstrous acts? The generation born in Germany after World War II – who Berthold Brecht called “those who came after” (Nachgeborenen) – faced that question every day. The 2008 German-American film The Reader, available on DVD at Whitehorse Public Library, explores the effect of …
During World War II, the brewing-trade industry known as the United Brewers Industrial Foundation worked with the U.S. government to create a series of ads designed to boost morale and highlight the positive aspects of beer. In Life magazine’s Aug. 4, 1941 edition is an amazing ad. Most of the body of the ad is …
