I drove into the museum parking lot last Saturday morning. Leaning over the tailgate of the pickup parked next to me, several guys in ball caps and jeans surveyed their precious cargo. I peered into the back box of the pickup, but I couldn’t recognize the rusty tangle of metal and wires as anything I’d ever seen before.
“Can you believe it?” one of the guys said. “We salvaged it from a ditch just this morning.” (more…)
It just looked like a pile of paper from the outside. And I guess because it was paper, it sort of weighed a lot. But the plastic bag I used to haul all that paper to the curb had probably previously hauled groceries from a local store so it could take the weight. And if you looked inside that bag, you’d have seen a number of famous people – John F. Kennedy, Winston Churchill and the Apollo 11 astronauts – all captured on the front pages of old newspapers with headlines such as:
“Kennedy Assassinated,” lamented the Globe and Mail in 1963.
“Churchill Mourned,” announced the Toronto Star in 1965.
“Man Steps On The Moon,” read the Toronto Telegram on July 21 1969. And the newsprint of the Tely, some of you will remember, was coloured pink! (more…)
He was only 18, back in 1955. He didn’t speak a word of English when he and his parents arrived from Italy. And his skills were few; he knew how to sharpen knives, so his father could butcher what livestock the family had raised for food. But when John Zentana arrived in Canada, none of that mattered. The basic criterion for entry to this new country was simple.
“Are you all prepared to work?” immigration authorities asked.
“Anything,” John’s father promised. (more…)
A few months ago, you may recall, I was rationalizing walking my grandsons to school. I tried to make the point that it was both time and exercise from which both the boys and I could benefit. Well, this week those chickens came home to roost. I got the call.
“Need some summer escape time,” the daughters announced.
“And?”
“And the boys are yours for a day!” (more…)
When I left on a short holiday, about 10 days ago, this fall’s municipal election in my home own looked rather dull. While the mayoral contest and the regional council races were shaping up to be competitive, the number of candidates running in our wards left several virtually uncontested and even on the verge of proclaimed winners. Within the span of my holiday, though, the picture changed radically. To quote a friend of mine:
“It’ll be democracy, after all!” (more…)
I think it was sometime last winter when one of my hockey buddies and I got talking about one of my favourite topics – history and history-making. He knew that I’ve always been curious to check out different, off-the-beaten-path stories. Suddenly, the latest one on his mind came to him and he blurted out the gist of it.
“Did you see the latest World War II story?” he asked. “They found a U-boat up the Niagara River near the Falls.”
I thought about it for a second, then said quietly, “I’ll bet you read that on the internet.”
“Yup. And there were pictures,” he added for verification. (more…)
Their enemy was water above and below the ground. And gravity, since the water and rock underground were sealing off any escape. Days passed and nothing seemed to happen, at least not on the surface anyway. Underground, it was different. People were holding on, conserving, surviving. Then, when communication was finally made, it seemed like a miracle.
“Hello, hello!” the voice shouted from underground. “Do you hear me up on the surface?” (more…)
New this fall, Ted Barris releases his latest book – Dam Busters: Canadian Airmen and the Secret Raid against Nazi Germany – published by HarperCollins.
It was a night that changed the Second World War. The secret air raid against the hydroelectric dams of Germany’s Ruhr River took years to plan, involved an untried bomb, and included the best aircrewmen RAF Bomber Command could muster – many of them Canadian. The attack marked the first time the Allies tactically took the war inside Nazi Germany.
On May 16, 1943, 133 airmen took off in 19 Lancaster bombers on a night sortie, code-named Operation Chastise. Hand-picked and specially trained, the Lancaster crews flew at treetop level to the industrial heartland of the Third Reich and their targets – the Ruhr River dams – whose massive water reservoirs powered Nazi Germany’s military industrial complex.
Every one of the 133 airmen on the raid understood the odds of survival were low. Of the 19 bombers outbound, eight did not return. Operation Chastise cost the lives of 53 airmen, including 14 Canadians. Of the 16 RCAF men who survived, seven received military decorations. Dam Busters recounts the dramatic story of these Commonwealth bomber crews tasked with a high-risk mission against an enemy prepared to defend the Fatherland to the death.
Ted Barris is an author, journalist and broadcaster, who has hosted regularly on CBC Radio and contributed to the National Post and Legion, Air Force and Zoomer magazines; he has authored 18 published, non-fiction books.
In 2011 he received the Veterans’ Affairs Commendation and in 2012 the Queen Elizabeth II Diamond Jubilee Medal. His book The Great Escape: A Canadian Story received the 2014 Libris Best Non-Fiction Book Award.
I’ve never worked in a war zone, the way some from Canada have. I’ve never pursued the crime beat so seriously as to encounter violence face-to-face. I’ve never been physically assaulted while carrying out my work as a journalist. The closest I’ve come to confrontation occurred back in the 1980s, when an oil company representative trying to keep the physical and media lid on a drilling-rig blowout in the Alberta oil patch, told me to remove myself from their property.
“Leave,” the company spokesman said, “or I’ll have you arrested!” (more…)
We were meeting for the very first time. I wanted to give my new acquaintance a gift that reflected where I came from and made a friendly first impression. I reached into my pocket and pulled out a souvenir. It was a lapel pin with the Canadian flag on it.
“Here,” I said, “please have a symbol of Canada – our flag pin.”
My acquaintance, one of the guides on our recent tour to Eastern Europe, looked back at me and said, “But I’m German,” meaning, “Why would I wear a pin that doesn’t represent who I am?”
I had to admit that Günter Kieb, our guide in Dresden, Germany, was absolutely correct. Why would a middle-aged German wear the emblem of Canada? Some hours later, however, when I was thanking Mr. Kieb for his service to us that day, I reminded him (and our touring group) that he had seemed perplexed by my Canada flag pin. “Not a problem,” I said. “But how about this?” And I pulled a small flask-shaped bottle from my backpack and gave it to him.
Günter’s eyes widened with delight. “Canadian whisky?” he asked.
“No. Better,” I laughed. “It’s maple syrup!” (more…)