Barris Beat

None left behind

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Zephyr Zion Cemetery with five servicemen’s graves & one missing.

It took me two tries but I finally found him. A week ago, I fulfilled a promise made to my colleagues at the Royal Canadian Legion. In the lead up to Sunday’s Decoration Day, a day set aside (annually since 1890) to acknowledge veterans’ service, I volunteered to seek out the graves of several Canadian soldiers buried in cemeteries near Leaskdale and Zephyr.

“It’d be a big help if you could place flags at the gravesites,” Michele Viney said. “There’s one grave we’re aware of, a Pte. William L. Dempster, but we’ve never found his marker.”

“I’ll do my best,” I promised. (more…)

Barris Beat

The case for unappreciated work

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Service delays not a lack of skill, but lack of tradespeople.

We welcomed some tradesmen to our home this week. I say welcomed, because a few weeks ago we were told the earliest we could expect a service visit for our air conditioner was August. Really? We asked to have our request go to a waiting list. Someone cancelled and our appointment was moved up. While he was here with a young assistant, I asked the more senior technician, “Why such a delay?”

“Company’s having trouble hiring people,” he said. “That’s why I have an assistant with me. He’s training on the job.”

Three years ago, the Canadian Federation of Independent Business (CFIB) described this predicament as an economy with “underappreciated” work. A CFIB report found that small Canadian firms lost $38 billion in business opportunities because of labour shortages, particularly in the construction sector. (more…)

Barris Beat

Citations for invisible wounds

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Rear Admiral (Ret’d) Chris Sutherland reflects on addiction & depression while in service. Photo – Matt Wocks, Wounded Warriors.

There were a lot of decorations on display the other morning in Ottawa. Some of those attending an annual breakfast I attended across the street at Parliament Hill on Monday, June 9, had more ribbons and military medals than I’d ever seen before.

But when the keynote speaker stepped to the lectern to address this largely military audience, he wore a plain business suit without a single decoration. Recently retired, Chris Sutherland could have worn his ceremonial navy uniform, displaying his rank as Rear Admiral and deputy commander of the entire Royal Canadian Navy (RCN). Instead, he just spoke.

“Good morning,” he said. “I’m a recovering addict, and I’ve struggled with mental illness, specifically depression.” (more…)

Barris Beat

Where underlying title has been proven

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Elmer Ghostkeeper views lands around him unlike most governments pushing development.

Back in the 1980s, when I first met him near Paddle Prairie, Alberta, about 500 kilometres northwest of Edmonton, Elmer Ghostkeeper had just moved onto land he’d inherited from his father. The 350-acre lot of bush and farmland was then one of eight Metis Federation Settlements of Alberta. And as precious as that place had been to his family for generations, his inheritance was never about ownership.

“The land doesn’t belong to me,” Ghostkeeper told me in an interview in 1981. “What’s more,” as he pointed out in his 1996 book Spirit Giving, “Canadians have to shift from living off the land to living with it.” (more…)

Barris Beat

Tribute to a comrade traveller

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John Imanse – farmer, traveller, gentle philosopher extraordinaire. Photo Ken Mist.

Most of you don’t know the name of the source for my story this week. But all of you know him. If you know someone who spends most of his time on the land, you know him. If that person is also self-made, a bit of a loner, not always outspoken, but remarkably prescient of people and trends, then you know him.

The first time I had a conversation with John Imanse, we were standing outside a tour bus near Amsterdam in 2005. Off to the side, he puffed on his cigarette like there was no tomorrow. Imanse, then 59, was one of over 100 people I was hosting on a tour around the Netherlands celebrating the 60th anniversary of Dutch liberation.

“What made you want to come on this tour? I asked him.

He motioned to the bus driver and said, “So I wouldn’t have to do that!” I wasn’t sure what he meant. “I’m a farmer,” he said. “I’ve always got my hands on the wheel of a tractor. But for the 10 days of this tour, I don’t even have to think about driving.” (more…)

Barris Beat

Inside a walk for change

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Ken MacKay during his walk for homeless vets. Newmarket Today photo.

Last Saturday afternoon, friend and Royal Canadian Legion Veterans Service Officer Carol Pearcey got a call from a fellow Legionnaire from southwestern Ontario. She hadn’t met the caller, Ken MacKay, but she sensed he needed help. MacKay was 22 days into a solo walkathon to Parliament Hill for fellow veterans.

But (you’ll remember weather turned cold and rainy Saturday afternoon) and MacKay asked for a lift over the last few kilometres to the local Legion for a planned reception. Pearcey obliged and MacKay made it to the Franklin Street branch safe and dry.

“Carol was my guardian angel,” he said. “I’m very grateful.” (more…)

Barris Beat

Price of freedom – 80 years on

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Allied tank crew helps restore freedom to the Netherlands, 1945.

In the last spring of the Second World War, Dutch citizens sensed that five years of Nazi occupation might soon be over. On May 4, 1945, the Allies would force German armies to surrender and restore freedom to millions of Dutch people.

At the time, five-year-old Harry Beukeboom, along with 18 siblings, lived on a farm outside Amsterdam. During that last “hunger winter” of 1945, his parents hid enough food from the Germans to keep the family alive.

“One morning, my dad and oldest brother were out milking cows,” explained Beukeboom on a recent Liberation tour to the Netherlands. “All of a sudden, a bomb hit the ground about 200 metres from them. Shrapnel missed him … but killed a cow in a neighbour’s barn.”

Young Harry couldn’t understand why an Allied bomber “tried to kill us. … Years later, I learned from air force veterans that the bomber likely released its bomb over countryside because the crew and plane were in peril.” (more…)

Barris Beat

Act of Remembrance, Dutch style

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Kees Traas began his tribute to his WWII liberators with this Canadian military helmet.

It all began with a barn loft full of relics. As a boy growing up in the Scheldt River estuary of the Netherlands, Kees Traas heard stories about the soldiers who’d liberated his country in the Second World War. But it wasn’t until the 1960s, when he was a teenager exploring his uncle’s workshop that he learned his liberators were from Canada and worth celebrating.

“The 30th of October, 1944, our community was liberated by the Canadians,” Traas (now 58) told me this Liberation Week in the Netherlands. “My uncle saved war artifacts. So, as kids we played with them, and he gave me a Canadian helmet. That was the beginning. (more…)

Barris Beat

Priceless finds in a box

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MP Sam Hughes routinely wore his military uniform in Parliament.

A staunch conservative, an outspoken nationalist, a supporter of Canadian symbols and a strong Canadian army, this part of the world came to know him as the embodiment of patriotism. And as a politician in another troubled time in Canada’s history, just before the Great War, MP Sam Hughes stated:

“Canada must ensure peace with national preparedness for war.”

Hughes put his money and his feisty attitude where his mouth was. (more…)

Barris Beat

Moderator confidential

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Full house at Cosmos candidates debate – minus one.

An acquaintance from Aurora contacted me the other day. He explained that one of the local riding associations planned a question-and-answer session with political candidates contesting in the current federal election. He knew that the Uxbridge Cosmos had just staged a forum.

“I know that the golden rule of moderating is try to be invisible,” he said. “But do you have any tips for me?”

“I think you’ve got it,” I answered. “Be firm. Be fair. But at the same time, as much as possible, stay out of the way.” (more…)