King George VI and Queen Elizabeth on the platform of the royal train that carried them across Canada during their 1939 royal tour. (William Lyon Mackenzie King /LAC/PA-203283)

Remembering a king’s message:
“How all civilized nations should live together.”

STORY BY RICHARD FOOT

Here’s a reminder of how much the world has changed—and how much it hasn’t.

In June 1939, King George VI, at the end of his and Queen Elizabeth’s royal tour of North America, paid tribute to the friendship they had witnessed between Canada and the United States:

“From the Atlantic to the Pacific, and from the tropics to the Arctic, lies a large part of the earth where there is no possibility of war between neighbours, whose peoples are wholly dedicated to the pursuits of peace, a pattern to all men of how civilized nations should live together,” the kng said.

“It is good to know that such a region exists, for what man can do once he can do again. By God’s grace yours may yet be the example which all the world will follow.”

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Wounded Great War veterans George Hincks and Marshall McDougall pictured in the Calgary Daily Herald on April 21, 1923. [Calgary Daily Herald]

Historian Eric Story on the legacy of Great War veterans with disabilities

STORY BY ALEX BOWERS

When the guns of the Western Front fell silent on Nov. 11, 1918, the smoke of battle gradually faded. The violence of the previous four years, however, had left countless scars—not only on the shattered landscape, but on those who survived it.

In time, sites of such bloodshed could largely heal—mud replaced with fertile fields, ruins rebuilt into thriving communities. The same could not always be said for tens of thousands of Canadian veterans with disabilities—men who had lost limbs, developed chronic illnesses or otherwise endured life-altering wounds. For many of these individuals, the Great War was carried home with them.

Medical and military historian Eric Story, an assistant professor at Wilfrid Laurier University in Waterloo, Ont., has studied the legacies of the conflict for more than 10 years. Rather than the quagmires of Belgium and France, his research has charted the very different—yet no less complex—landscape of postwar disability and advocacy in Canada.

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The Halifax Memorial with the port’s Halterm container terminal in the distance. [Richard Foot/LM]

Freedom of the seas: Today’s conflicts jeopardize the Battle of the Atlantic’s legacy

STORY BY RICHARD FOOT

At Point Pleasant Park in Halifax, where the city’s harbour meets the incoming swells of the Atlantic, one can see vividly how momentous events of the past inform the present.

On the Halifax Memorial, just steps from the water’s edge, bronze panels bear the names of 3,267 Canadians and Newfoundlanders who died at sea in unknown graves during the First and Second world wars. Most (including many merchant seamen) were lost in transatlantic convoys bringing war supplies to Europe.

Meanwhile, every day within sight of the memorial, ships carrying cargo from across the Americas, Asia and Europe enter the harbour and dock at a container-loading terminal, whose giant cranes can be seen and heard throughout the park. According to the Port of Halifax, more than 8.5 million metric tonnes of cargo passed through in 2025.

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Don Begg and Shirley Stephens-Begg stand with The Royal Regina Rifles commemorative statue they sculpted during its unveiling at Thue et Mue, France, on June 5, 2024. [Corporal Antoine Brochu/Canadian Forces Combat Camera]

Sculptors Don and Shirley Begg on immortalizing Canadian military history in bronze

STORY BY ALEX BOWERS

“How many people,” asked sculptor Don Begg of Studio West Bronze Foundry & Gallery in Cochrane, Alta., “get the chance to make something that will last 1,000 years?” Certainly, he and his wife, fellow sculptor Shirley Stephens-Begg, are two such artists.

Having created more than 100 public installations across North America and beyond since their workshop’s founding in 1970, the pair take particular pride in commemorating Canadian military history and heritage. Their sculptures include the Great War nursing sister depicted on the Saskatchewan War Memorial in Regina; “The Infantryman” in Oromocto, N.B.; the “Let’s Go” monument portraying a Korean War soldier in Calgary; and various cenotaphs throughout Canada.

Speaking to Legion Magazine, Don and Shirley reflected on legacy, both their own and those who they immortalize.

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