In “Sixth Company Battalion,” photographer Anique Jordan cast her mother and two aunts in the uniforms of War of 1812 British forces, for which Black Loyalists from Trinidad fought. The photograph is among 70 works by 52 women artists on exhibit at the Canadian War Museum until Jan. 5. (ANIQUE JORDAN/CWM)

War Museum exhibits more than two centuries of women’s war art

STORY BY STEPHEN J. THORNE

Elise Findlay had just graduated with distinction and the Board of Governor’s Award from Alberta University of the Arts when an unprecedented opportunity presented itself. The former cabinet maker from Banff seized the day, applying for and becoming the Canadian War Museum’s first artist in residence.

Now she’s part of a sweeping exhibition featuring more than two centuries of Canadian women’s war art, her fabric-based interpretations of the tools her predecessors used and weapons and accoutrements of war displayed alongside works by the likes of Mary Riter Hamilton, Molly Lamb Bobak and Gertrude Kearns.

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Sonia and Guy d’Artois. (Wikipedia)

Love Behind Enemy Lines: An Anglo-Canadian Couple’s D-Day Exploits

STORY BY ALEX BOWERS

“Tell fourteen the Queen’s terrace is wide,” said the BBC presenter over radio airwaves on June 1, 1944. To most listeners in occupied France, the strange statement would have meant little. To Guy d’Artois, a 27-year-old Canadian agent of the Special Operations Executive (SOE)—together with French resistance fighters of the DITCHER circuit—the cryptic code signified the news they had been waiting for: D-Day would begin within the next 15 days.

There was no time to lose.

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Darryl Doolittle of Valley City Branch in Dundas, Ont., ran the table in five of six playoff games to take the singles title at the 2024 Legion national eight-ball championships in Hartland, N.B. (STEPHEN J. THORNE)

The eyes have it: A pool pictorial

STORY BY STEPHEN J. THORNE

Apparently concerned yet unfazed by Robert Preston’s cautionary message, Darryl Doolittle’s mom deposited her eight-year-old son at Jigger’s pool hall in Hagersville, Ont., more than half a century ago and told him to “keep an eye on” his dad.

Darryl Doolittle never looked back.

“Since I picked up that cue, I loved this game,” he said after sweeping all three titles—team, doubles and singles—at the 2024 Legion national eight-ball championships May 24-27 in beautiful Hartland, N.B.

“All my life—that’s 52 years ago. That’s a true story.”

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Canadians in South Africa. (CANADIAN WAR MUSEUM)

Canada and the Boer War

STORY BY ALEX BOWERS

On May 31, 1902, the Treaty of Vereeniging formally ended the Boer War, leaving the British Empire victorious against the South African Republic (or Transvaal) and the Orange Free State.

The Afrikaans-speaking Boers, descended from Dutch settlers, were now British subjects, while the resource-rich lands belonged to the Crown.

Fuelled by imperialism, numerous atrocities had been committed during some three years of bloody battles, scorched earth policy and in concentration camps run by the British.

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