Stephen J. Thorne

100 pictures of the 44th Legion National Youth Track and Field Championships: Part 1

STORY BY STEPHEN J. THORNE

The Legion National Youth Track and Field Championships took place for the 44th time in August after a two-year, pandemic-imposed hiatus.

Six-hundred-and-ninety teenaged athletes participated over three days of events, including 255 Royal Canadian Legion-sponsored participants who more than held their own against elite club and independent competition from across the country. Among 52 clubs and unattached athletes, RCL teams swept the Top 3 positions in the medal count and placed five in the Top 10.

With Ontario and Newfoundland and Labrador not participating for another year due to COVID-related issues, British Columbia/Yukon led all comers with 20 gold and 43 medals overall, followed by Alberta-Northwest Territories (16/36) and Quebec (8/26). Manitoba/Northwest Ontario placed fifth in the team count with 10 medals; Nova Scotia/Nunavut was eighth with eight, half of them gold.

Legion-sponsored teams took 129 of 248 medals awarded at the championships, the only truly national competition for pre-university track-and-field athletes in the country.

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PA-056817

Remembering the first Canadian to die in the Second World War

STORY BY SHARON ADAMS

On Sept. 1, 1939, the passenger liner Athenia left Scotland bound for Montreal, two days before Britain declared war on Germany.

Athenia was carrying 1,418 passengers and crew, including 469 Canadians, mostly women and children, trying to get home before hostilities began. Among them was Hannah Baird of Verdun, Que., who went to Britain as a nanny, escorting two children travelling to join relatives, and took a job as a steward on Athenia to work her way back home.

But the Second World War began while Athenia was at sea. Britain declared war on Germany at 11 a.m. on Sept. 3. The Germans had stationed a score of U-boats around the British Isles and were ready to attack, which they did—just eight hours after war officially began

Athenia was the first British ship torpedoed by a U-boat in the conflict and Baird was the first Canadian civilian war casualty, seven days before the country entered the war.

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