The Empress Hotel provides a fine backdrop to this soldier’s portrait

I recently discovered a photograph album containing a small selection of photos taken in and around Victoria, BC during the First World War. The album contains no clues as to the identity of the soldiers nor any writing whatsoever. The album includes images from before the war and well into the 1920’s but I suspect the images below date from 1915 or 1916 when two Canadian Army Medical Corps units were being mobilized in Victoria. The No. 5 Canadian General Hospital was organized in June 1915 and sailed for Salonika on August 27th of the same year. The No. 13 Canadian Field Ambulance mobilized in March 1916 and left Victoria on July 1st 1916.

The last photo in the series, my favourite, shows a Private in the 67th Battalion (The Western Scots) posing with a woman wearing his Glengarry. The 67th mobilized in June 1915 and departed Victoria on April 5, 1916. Two articles I published earlier this year contain more detail on the Western Scot’s time in Victoria.

A couple pose on the ivy-covered verandah of the Empress Hotel