Life at Camp Borden Heat and dust continued to bedevil Borden’s battalion boys. After long days training and marching, keeping clean was the hardest thing to do. This seemed especially so for those who were used to someone else doing their washing. “Mothers, sisters and friends of the 118th boys, if you could see them […] Read more…
Leaving Carling Heights. Arriving at Camp Borden. Moving to the big camp near Barrie, Ontario loomed heavy over soldiers’ heads. After four countermands, the 118th Battalion received their orders to pack and board the train to Camp Borden. “Huronto,” The Berlin News-Record’s special correspondent told readers after the boys packed everything up, they “lay around […] Read more…
Dominion Day, 1916 Canada celebrated its 49th birthday on 1 July 1916. Today it’s sometimes difficult to think of what it was like when Canada was a fledgling nation. In 1916, many people were alive (and remembered) the Charlottetown Conference so thinking back to those early days shouldn’t have been a great stretch. A bit of […] Read more…
The long, slow vote to a new name It seems any worries about a mad stampede of passionate voters to the referendum poll were for nought. To avoid a one-day rush, organisers decided the polling station (yes, singular) would be open from 9 am to 9 pm for four days (from 24-28 June (but […] Read more…
SOS A severe storm passed over the northern part of the County just before suppertime on 15 June. The next day, The Berlin Daily Telegraph’s front-page story, “Cyclone sweeps over Elmira,” described the swath cut through the small town. No one was injured, but shortly after the winds picked up, “it developed into a […] Read more…
Huzzah? According to The Berlin Daily Telegraph, “there has been considerable worry on the part of a certain class in the city.” The shortlist wasn’t to blame: King George V’s radio silence caused furrowed eyebrows because he had yet to congratulate the city on voting to rid itself of its enemy name. It’s not as if […] Read more…