Trauma and Regeneration

For those of you who are not attending the opening of the play Vimy Ridge on November 2, there is another event the same night which would be very good to attend before seeing the play. Lyle Dick is giving a talk at the Japanese Canadian National Museum. (The info below is from the Museum's web site.)

The Canadian National Vimy Memorial and the Japanese Canadian War Memorial: Landscapes of Trauma and Regeneration Wednesday, November 2, 7pm
Admission by donation

Both the Canadian National Vimy Memorial in France and the Japanese Canadian War Memorial in Vancouver incorporate living memorials to Canada’s war dead following the devastation of the First World War. In their sculptural forms, designed landscapes and vegetation, these memorials symbolically acknowledge the suffering and sacrifice of our fallen soldiers alongside the potential for healing and regeneration, imbuing these sites with enduring resonance and significance.

Lyle Dick is the West Coast Historian with Parks Canada in Vancouver, BC and the author of two award-winning books – Muskox Land (Winner, Harold Innis Prize, 2003), and Farmers “Making Good” (Revised edition 2008, co-winner CHA Clio Prize, 1990). He has delivered nearly 100 public presentations, conference papers and named lectures at universities, museums, libraries, and other venues across North America and in Europe. He is currently the President of the Canadian Historical Association.

Once, again, this talk is at the Japanese Canadian National Museum

#120-6688 Southoaks Crescent Burnaby, BC Canada V5E 4M7

---

Hours: 11am-5pm, Tues - Sat (closed Sun, Mon & statutory holidays)
Phone: 604.777.7000

The White Roses: Nurses in WWI

Last night Sheila Zerr and Nan Nartin, members of the BC Nursing History Society, spoke about the role of the Nursing Sisters during WWI. Zerr showed us a stained glass window in Vancouver that features an image of a "bluebird". Her skirt is well above her ankles and she is wearing sturdy boots. The story is that the skirts used to be longer, but they trailed in the mud of the battlefield so the sisters cut them and hemmed them shorter. In this way they are credited for introducing the shorter length of the flapper dresses in the 1920's.

Martin showed us an original cuff from a WWI uniform that is white and goes from the wrist to the elbow. It is detachable so it can be removed and cleaned, in fact it is still faintly blood-stained.

One of the mysteries of the uniform is this white rose at the back of the cape. Does anyone know the story behind this detail? According to Canadian author Gabriele Wills, there is an excellent book about nurses in WWI called The Roses of No Man's Land by Lyn MacDonald. Maybe that book tells the tale. Be sure to check out Gabriele's fantastic page about WWI, including facts about the medical front. You'll see the fabulous photo of Gabriele at the Vimy Memorial which I reproduced in the show in the gallery.

More than 2,800 Canadian Nursing Sisters served with the Canadian Army Medical Corps during the First World War, often close to the front lines of Europe and within range of enemy attack. With their blue dresses and white veils, they were nicknamed the “bluebirds” and were greatly respected because of their compassion and courage.

www.veterans.gc.ca

WWI

• 6 nurses killed in hospital bombings

• 15 killed when their hospital ship, the Llandovery Castle was sunk

• 15 died of contagious diseases such tuberculosis, which killed several other nurses when they returned home

• bluebirds were the first women allowed to vote legally in Canada in a federal election

A Remembrance Day in Afghanistan

Last night's talk on Women in War was the final community dialogue for this project created by the Firehall Arts Centre. We were treated to two nurse historians dressed at WWI Red Cross Nurses telling us about the nursing sisters in the Great War and a nurse currently serving in the Canadian Forces talking about her recent experiences.

Siobhan Annand is a Critical Care Nursing Officer in the Canadian Forces. Officer Annand has twice been deployed to Afghanistan and has also been posted in Haiti helping that country deal with the aftermath of the devastating earthquake. When asked why she enlisted as an emergency nurse of active duty she said, "Because I wanted to be a leader."


Annand showed us a collection of photos of the medical staff in action and during their down time. She deals with the worst cases of trauma by focusing on keeping her patient alive, no matter if they are Canadian, American, Taliban, or Afghan children. "Most of my patients are amputees," she says. "If they are Taliban, I try to make it very hard for them to hate me. Most are extremely grateful for what we do."

Annand showed us pictures of nurses and parents cradling children with severe burns and amputated legs. She described the way the Canadians set up their temporary hospital from the ground up. When a photo of a tarantula in a box came on the screen she said, "Those were our bed bugs." I was very interested in a photo of an American soldier covered in a homemade quilt. Apparently their are clubs in the States that make quilts for American soldiers showing and telling them how much they appreciate their service. When the soldier is in the trauma unit his buddies and the medical staff sign the quilt with indelible markers so that when he wakes up on his way home he can take comfort in this gift. "American soldiers get American blood and Canadian soldiers get Canadian blood," Annand states, but we don't hold back blood from any patient." She explained they have what they call a "walking blood bank"--soldiers who are screened and can donate blood if it's needed.

When Annand showed us a photo of nurses wearing Remembrance Day poppies, I detected emotion in her voice. "We were all ready to observe the moment of silence on the 11th day of the 11th hour and the call came in that more casualties had arrived." She spent the rest of Remembrance Day saving lives.

Annand donated her speaking fee to an organization called Soldier On, which helps rehabilitate ill and wounded soldiers.

Two Views and Asahi Baseball

Japanese Canadian relocation - Women's dormitory
VPL Accession Number: 1492, May 13, 1942. Photographer: Leonard Frank

I traveled to the Surrey Museum to see Two Views, photos of the Japanese internment during WWII in Canada by Leonard Frank and in California by Ansel Adams. What I felt was missing in the show was the voice of the Japanese people themselves. It's important to note that one of the first things taken from the Japanese people after Pearl Harbor was their cameras. Frank was hired to take these photographs as part of his role as official photographer for the Dominion of Canada. Adams went to the camp on his own dime to show how the Japanese people had created a dignified community life in spite of their living conditions and the terrible injustice that had been done to them.

The following eyewitness account is an example of what I felt was needed to contextualize the photographs:

The whole place is impregnated with the smell of ancient manure and maggots. Every other day it is swept with chlorine of lime, or something, but you can't disguise the horse smell, cow smell, sheep, pigs, rabbits and goats. And it is dusty! The toilets are just a sheet metal trough, and up until now they did not have partitions or seats. The women kicked so they put up partitions and a terribly makeshift seat. Twelve year old boys stay with the women too, you know . . . as for the bunks, they were the most tragic things there. Steel and wooden frames with a thin, lumpy straw tick, a bolster and three army blankets . . . no sheets unless you bring your own. These are the "homes" of the women I saw . . . these bunks were hung with sheets and blankets and clothes of every hue and variety--a regular gypsy tent of colours, age, and cleanliness--all hung in a pathetic attempt at privacy. . . an old, old lady was crying, saying she would rather have died than to come to such a place . . . there are ten showers for 1, 500 women.

--Muriel Fujiwara Kitagawa to Wesley Kitagawa, 20 April 1942

The Pacific National Exhibition: An Illustrated History by David Breen and Kenneth Coates

This Sunday, there was a fantastic documentary on the history of baseball in the Japanese- Canadian community before, during and after WWII. I highly recommend listening to the podcast.

Morning Sun:

It was an anniversary that passed with little fanfare. Last month, on September 18th, a group of baseball players gathered in an old park in Vancouver's downtown eastside. They were there to pay their respects to the Asahi, a Japanese-Canadian baseball team that played its last game in the same park 70 years earlier.

There are just a few of those original Asahi players left today. This was perhaps the last chance to thank those men for what they meant to the community. It was also a chance to think about their legacy.

Back in the 20s and 30s, the Asahi was the sporting cornerstone of a bustling neighbourhood, the pride and joy of Japantown. But then the Second World War came ... and then Pearl Harbour ... and Ottawa ordered Japanese-Canadians off Canada's west coast. Twenty-two thousand people of Japanese descent were rounded up and sent to camps in the BC interior. Families were torn apart, and many never returned to the west coast.

Japantown quickly withered and died. And the Asahi baseball team was suddenly no more.

But as you'll hear in John Chipman's documentary, Morning Sun, that wasn't the end of baseball for Canada's Japanese.

--http://www.cbc.ca/thesundayedition/shows/2011/10/23/no-syrian-spring---asahi-baseball---ibsen/

Community Dialogue: Women and War

Join us Monday, October 24, 7pm
in the Peter Kaye Room at the Central Branch Library for Women and War
a Firehall Community Dialogue Session

Women and War
Featuring a presentation by Sheila Zerr and Nan Martin, members of the BC Nursing History Society, about the role of the Nursing Sisters during WWI. Zerr and Martin will speak directly on the history of nursing sisters within the war and the chronology of nurses' roles from original inception into the battle grounds abroad. Both will be dressed in WWI Red Cross Nursing uniforms, one of which was worn at a European Front Hospital.

A Question of Loyalty

During WWII Italians in Vancouver were declared enemy aliens. Some were monitored by the authorities and were required to sign in at their local post office, but 44 Italian men were interned. A local theater company called Bella Luna Productions is in a process of creating a theater piece based on their research into the history of Italians in Vancouver during the second World War. The play is called A Question of Loyalty and it is part of a project the Italian Cultural Centre is creating including an archival show of images and a book by Ray Culos. This all happens in April 2012 and I'm really looking forward to seeing the project because this is part of Vancouver's history which remains a mystery to me.

Today on CBC Radio One's BC Almanac between noon and one pm Mark Forsythe will be talking to Lynne Bowan who wrote a book about called Whoever Gives us Bread: the story of Italians in British Columbia.

It's Up!

The show of photographs of Vancouver during wartime is now up in the lobby of the Firehall. You can pop in and see the show during the day Wednesday through Saturday from 1-5 pm, or check it out when you come to see the play called Vimy by Vern Thiessen. Thanks so much to the folks who helped me hang the show. I ended up choosing to mount and frame photographs from World War II (as opposed to WWI). As I worked on creating the show I became intrigued with the idea that a few of the children in the photos might still be alive today and would be able to tell us their memories of the events portrayed in the show. Also, these people in the photos are the grandparents, parents, uncles and aunts of people who may have more photos and stories of Vancouver during wartime in their own collections. I urge you to talk to your family, ask them about the war and become your own family's archivist so that we don't lose these stories. This show is suitable for families to view together and would be a good place for younger people to learn about the city's history. The show fits into the grade 11 curriculum, but I would say that it is suitable for grade 5 and up.

Of course now that the show is up I will likely find other photos I would have loved to put in the show, so my wish is to keep researching and searching for photos of Vancouver during WWII to create a future project. I am particularly interested in furthering research into Canada's Victory Gardens. I would also be interested in working with schools to create art around the subjects covered in this exhibition.

On Monday night the Firehall organized a fabulous community dialogue around the role of art in war. I outlined the process of creating the exhibition and discussed the role of propaganda in wartime. Rob MacDonald, curator of the Seaforth Highlanders Museum in Vancouver talked about his passion for finding the stories attached to the photographs and objects in the museum. He is an eloquent storyteller and his extensive knowledge of history helps him to unearth the mysteries hidden in the collection. Right now MacDonald and his staff are in the process of digitizing the collection so that families from all over the world can trace photographs of their loved ones. He says he gets a couple of calls every week of people trying to track down photos or information about a family member who served in the Seaforth. You can visit the Seaforth Museum at 1650 Burrard Street on Wednesdays 7:30 to 9 pm, September through April.

We also heard from a painter named Christopher Baird Hennebery. Chris studied painting at Emily Carr and served in the Royal Westminster Regiment for over twenty years. He created his own project called Painting to Afghanistan and this year he traveled to Afghanistan to take photographs, sketch and draw. Unlike Canada's official war artists, Chris went outside the safe zone, put on his body armor and worked in incredibly dangerous conditions.

As a note to other artists: if you think your insurance bill is high, war artists have to be insured for $15,000.