Frontline Salute: Red Gables Hospital Part 2
I’m continuing my tribute to those battling COVID-19 in our hospitals, nursing homes and as first responders by digging through my archives of First World War hospital photographs. This is […]
Frontline Salute: Red Gables Hospital Part 1
I’m continuing my tribute to those battling COVID-19 in our hospitals, nursing homes and as first responders by digging through my archives of First World War hospital photographs. This week […]
An Update on my visit to Ypres
I’ve just completed my third full day in Ypres and although it was my intention to blog every day I simply haven’t had the time or the energy to do […]
In Their Own Words: Oral Histories as a Research Tool
Mining archives and databases for information on an ancestor requires focus, a methodical approach and an eye for detail. However shaping this raw data into a meaningful story, one that you […]
Victoria’s Bay Street Armoury Celebrates 100 Years
The Bay Street Armoury has been part of our community for 100 years and on Sunday it celebrated by opening its doors to the public. The event was very well attended […]
A West Coast Cadet: Remembering E. R. Shearman
In hindsight it’s easy to forget that not every soldier who wanted to do his bit in the First World War had the opportunity to do so. In 1914, and in […]
Royal BC Museum invites you to help Transcribe WW1 Docs
In April the Royal BC Museum launched Transcribe, a crowd-sourcing website that provides citizen historians with an opportunity to transcribe historical documents from the Provincial Archives. The museum’s first transcription project […]
Remembering Captain John Geddes, 16th Battalion CEF
Captain John Geddes died on April 22, 1915 leading his men in the midnight attack on Kitchener’s Wood. His final moments were captured in Mark Zuehlke’s fine book ‘Brave Battalion‘: “Captain Geddes had been […]
Kitchener’s Wood: Pte Denholm’s Curious Keepsake
Private John Denholm‘s First World War scrapbook contains an unusual piece of ephemera, a postcard written to a German soldier named Robert Kirchner. Denholm went to the trouble of having […]
Kitchener’s Wood: the letters of Sgt. Charles Herbert Peck
“The hardest thing that I have saw is a young fellow from Annapolis valley. I took a liking to him in Valcartier and keep him with me up to the […]
Doing Our Bit 