Filmmaker Garth Pritchard: The good fight

An item from the Legion Magazine.

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Filmmaker Garth Pritchard: The good fight

Story by Stephen J. Thorne

“F/8 and be there” has been Garth Pritchard’s camera-ready mantra over more than 50 years as a journalist, rancher and raconteur. And the robust Alberta-based filmmaker has been all over the world with Canadian troops, from Africa and Burma to Afghanistan and the Balkans.

Beloved by soldiers from one end of Canada to the other, Garth made it his life’s mission to tell their stories. Now, as the outspoken 75-year-old struggles to overcome the debilitating physical legacy of that quest, the Canadian War Museum has announced it has acquired the bulk of his work, a legacy for all Canadians.

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The law reaches Fort Whoop-Up

Story by Sharon Adams

In 1873, the people of what is now southern Alberta and Saskatchewan had a serious complaint. With no police force, traders and outlaws who had fled prohibition in the United States had established a well-defended fort where they traded buffalo robes and sold U.S. whiskey, largely to First Nations people, and spread criminal chaos throughout the countryside.

Even though it was in Canadian territory, an American flag was said to fly over Fort Whoop-Up, near modern-day Lethbridge. Violence and criminal activity seeped from this criminal cul-de-sac into surrounding territory.