The life of Rifleman Sulo W. Alanen
Version française By Ariane Gauthier The story of Sulo W. Alanen begins in the northern Ontarian village of Nolalu, a small settlement outside of Thunder Bay that emerged largely due to the arrival of...
View ArticleThe Kapuskasing Internment Camp
Version française By Ariane Gauthier We make surprising connections throughout our lives. Things we thought were confined to our work or social circles unexpectedly surface in other areas. For me,...
View ArticleBlack Porter Perspectives: Giving Voice to Rail Service During and After the...
Version française By Stacey Zembrzycki This four-part Black Porter Perspectives blog series is inspired by a striking and haunting set of images found within the Department of National Defence (DND)...
View ArticleBlack Porter Perspectives: Hospital Ships and Hospital Trains
Version française By Jeff Noakes The image above comes from a series of photographs of Black sleeping car porters from during and after the Second World War. This series documents service to country...
View ArticleBlack Porter Perspectives: Bringing Thomas Nash, a Canadian National Railway...
Version française By Andrew Elliott In the first post of the Black Porter Perspectives series, Rebecca Murray highlighted a wartime photograph that identified a railway sleeping car porter: Jim Jones...
View ArticleBlack Porter Perspectives: Through the Lens of Military Records
Version française By Rebecca Murray Library and Archives Canada (LAC) holds over 30 million images in various formats, including born digital images, negatives and photographic prints. A single...
View ArticleMy Dear Friend: Letters from Normandy to our Canadian Soldiers
Version française By Ariane Gauthier As part of my work as a reference archivist at Library and Archives Canada (LAC), I often find myself delving into the many documents in the Second World War...
View ArticleGuide to DIY personal military displays
Version française By Sacha Mathew Did you know that you can easily make your own military heritage display by using the tools and digitized records found on the Library and Archives Canada website?...
View ArticleFirst on the Lakes: HMCS Griffon
Version française By Dylan Roy Sometimes you come across a record that doesn’t necessarily make sense at first glance. This was my experience when I first looked at the archival description of the...
View ArticleWomen in the War: the Royal Canadian Air Force at 100
Version française By Rebecca Murray Please note that many of the visuals for this article were taken from digitized microfiche; as such, the image quality varies, and individual item-level catalogue...
View ArticleThe Final Charge of the Canadian Cavalry
Version française By Ethan M. Coudenys Shells were falling, machine guns were firing, and horses were whinnying as the final cavalry charge of the Great War on the Western Front took place at Moreuil...
View ArticleThe Life of Private Marcel Gauthier (Part 2)
Version française By Ariane Gauthier I first learned about Marcel Gauthier a few years ago when I was visiting the Bény-sur-Mer Canadian War Cemetery, in France. Although we share the same surname,...
View ArticleWomen in the war: a Co-Lab challenge
By Rebecca Murray Canadian women are part of the photographic record of the Second World War. The Department of National Defence fonds (RG24/R112) includes over two million photographs, from Comox in...
View ArticleDressing the Troops: Knitting During the Wars
By Cara Downey Canadian knitters played a significant role in outfitting those who served in various wars, including the First and Second World Wars, as well as the Korean War. Knitters made socks,...
View ArticleMolly Lamb Bobak, Canada’s first female official war artist overseas: A...
By Krista Cooke Molly Lamb Bobak, the first female official war artist overseas, is arguably the Second World War painter who best captured Canadian women’s experiences of military life. In 1942, Molly...
View ArticleCIL: The story of a brand
By François Larivée The CIL name is a commercial brand that immediately evokes something in the collective consciousness, namely paint. However, for those who explore the history behind this well-known...
View ArticleJapanese Canadian internment: Over 40,000 pages and 180 photographs digitized...
By Gabrielle Nishiguchi The DigiLab has hosted many projects since its launch in 2017, two of which were carried out by Landscapes of Injustice. Landscapes of Injustice is a major, seven-year...
View ArticleThe liberation of the Netherlands (1944–1945)
By Sarah Bellefleur Bondu This year, 2020, is the 75th anniversary of the end of the Second World War. The cruel conflict lasted for six long years; it included battles, military offensives,...
View ArticleA selection of records about D-Day and the Normandy Campaign, June 6 to...
By Alex Comber With part 1 of this post, we marked the 75th anniversary of D-Day and commemorated Canada’s participation in the June 6, 1944, invasion of northwestern Europe, and the Normandy Campaign,...
View ArticleD-Day and the Normandy Campaign, June 6 to August 30, 1944
By Alex Comber On this day 75 years ago, Canadian soldiers, sailors, pilots and aircrew were fighting in France in one of the largest military operations in history. Operation Neptune, or “D-Day,” was...
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