History Helps Volume Seven, Number 12, November 2007
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• Greetings
• World War One
• International Boundary Line
• Subscription, Privacy Policy
• Something to Think About

GREETINGS!

Good-bye
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This is the last issue of “History Helps” and my opportunity to say good-bye to all of you and to wish you the very best of luck in your research and other adventures.

Volumes Six and Seven will be uploaded to my website in the new year, as early as I can make that, and the website will continue to stay in place for as long as my husband continues to maintain it. I hope to write one or two more books, and among those will be a revision of “Ladner's Landing of Yesteryear” -- my “first-born,” so to speak but also the one that I practised on in terms of text and photographs and money spent. How much more “history” I’m able to leave behind will depend on how much the cancer permits -- and I hope to enjoy as much as possible getting those pieces done.

Finally, it has been a pleasure to share all the treasures I’ve found with all of you, and I hope that over the past seven years all of you have found something that piqued your interest. I’ll miss doing this after seven years. Be well!

World War One

“British-Born in the Canadian Army

To the Editor of The World:

Sir: --- I have noticed the correspondence in your column as to the proportion of British-born men who are referred to as Canadians, because of their joining the various expeditionary forces from this country. It is well-known that proportion is a large one: some say in the earlier contingents as high as 90 per cent. As to the later contingents, the casualty lists tell the story.

In the Upper Country there stands a shack, deserted apparently in haste by its owner. Doors and windows are guarded with boards, shingles have fallen from the roof, wisps of straw and dead grass are round the front door. You glance within; the stove is red with rust; by its side are a few pieces of unused kindling. An axe is in the corner; and most pathetic of all, is a coat hanging against the wall. The fences are falling down; cattle have been roaming on the garden. You ask: ‘Whose place is this?’ ‘A young Englishman’s, who joined up and left for the front when the war broke out,’ is the answer.

There are many such deserted shacks in British Columbia, hundreds throughout Canada, They are the homes of heroes. Their owners did not hesitate -- the Old Country, the Homeland, called them.

With them went a vast number of other Britishers who had come to Canada to seek their fortunes in Canada in various ways, or who, as world-wanderers, had stayed here awhile. There was the man with the ‘english accent,’ the derided ‘remittance-man,’ the fellow who wore knickerbockers and who wouldn’t wear rubbers; even he of the monocle heard and obeyed the call. And they won’t come back. No more will the owner wield that axe or wear that coat. His body and those of thousands of his comrades are buried near where they fell, staying the first onward rush of the German host. Many, no less brave, have followed and will follow; have died or will die for us and ours.

But what matters it where these men were born or whether known as Canadian or British soldiers? Comrades all, they shared a common danger and fill heroes’ graves. Side by side lie men who first saw the light in Great Britain or in Canada, their duty done to the last.

And its doing will be told in song and story when this generation has given place to another and the Great War shall have passed into history. None will ask their origin; enough to know they shared in a great struggle for right, obeyed a common impulse to resist domination by a nation [which], before the Norman conquest, had an evil celebrity for aggression and cruelty to conquered peoples. To that reputation Germany has fully lived up in these later days, filling conquered countries with the tragedy of war, leaving the widow, the fatherless, the old and infirm, the striving and despairing, whose cry goes up for succour and justice, for liberty and security.

Yours, etc.,       
L. J. SEYMOUR     

Vancouver, March 7, 1918.”

Source: The Vancouver World, Friday, 08 March 1918, page eight.

International Boundary Line

“RANGE MARKERS TO BE ERECTED IN BAY

Work on range markers in Boundary Bay has been under way for two weeks. These lights will mark the international boundary and will be used by Canadian and American fishermen in their fishing operations.

Four lights, two on the Maple Beach side of the Bay and two on the Blaine side, will make the chain that will mark the international boundary. On the Maple Beach side one light will be erected on the shore near the corner of the road that turns south along the beach, and another light will be built about 1200 feet out in the the Bay. The other two lights on the Blaine side will be similarly placed.

Canadian men only are being employed on this side of the Bay, while on the Blaine side American help is being used.

The lights will be similar in style to those which were erected some years ago off West Point Roberts.”

Source: The Weekly Optimist, 28 February 1935, page one.

Subscription, Privacy Policy

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Your e-mail address is not shared with anyone.

Something to Think About

This is a feature that I started with way back when and it seems appropriate to end with it.

“Never test the depth of the water with both feet.”

Source: The Country Register, Vol. 12 No. 5, Oct. Nov. 2007.

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Gwen Szychter, M.A.