Fort Garry Gate & CNR/GTP Tracks at the Forks, Postcards x5

Modern historical interpretation finally gives us a clue! 

Virtually nothing is left of the former fur-trading 'district headquarters'. The last enduring fragment of the old fort has stood there as 'something, something old' for almost 150 years. One could collect postcards down through the ages (see below) but still not understand what one was looking at.

Without puzzling over postcards or going through history books or university map sites, you can begin to guess where Fort Garry once was ... just by looking at the image below. 

Your starting point for this voyage of discovery is the surviving fort gate, located where the national-parks-evoking fir tree image points.

from: Google Earth

Nicholas Garry was an unmarried London-based director on the Hudson's Bay Company Committee (i.e. board of directors) ... who volunteered to travel to Canada ... to communicate the news that the North West Company and the Hudson's Bay Company would cease their trading rivalry and violence ... and consolidate as one organization. 

This combination was forced by the British government which was 'tired of you two kids fighting in the back seat!'

Simon McGillivray was appointed to represent the North West Company on the same mission. Garry and McGillivray were breaking this news primarily to gatherings of the wintering partners as they travelled.

In July or August of 1821, they reached the Red River Colony (also known as the Selkirk Settlement) and then it was off to Norway House. 

In 1822, the newly-established HBC fort 'at the Red River Colony' was named Fort Garry in honour of Nicholas Garry's work and visit during the previous year.

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While the circa Edwardian postcard scene may be 'English-looking' ... 

maybe that's not exactly what we should be aiming for when considering this artifact of Canadian history.

The other building was the home of the Manitoba Club before a new building opened in 1905.

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from: Canada's Five Centuries; W Kaye Lamb; 1971; McGraw-Hill.

The source 4 inch by 5 inch image above depicts Fort Garry as it would have appeared in 1867.

You can see our still-surviving cube-shaped north gate of Fort Garry ... centred on the left end of the fort. In the foreground is the Assiniboine River. It empties into the Red River. The Red is seen on the far side of the fort and flows right (south) to left (north).

The Forks was an essential commercial junction of two significant early Canadian transportation assets - the two rivers.

A TV show once pointed out that the historical grand entrance to the Taj Mahal was on the Yamuna River side - because important guests travelled by water and would be received there. The everyday 'tourist photo' of the Taj Mahal is actually of its back yard ... where Shah Jahān would keep things like his propane barbeque, compost bin, etc.

Similarly, the image above shows steamboats, York boats, canoes, wagons and carts working out of The Forks-side gate ... which is not the gate which was preserved. It seems likely that touring fur trade big shots would have arrived by water at the south gate.

In 1822, through the governor's north gate, he could travel by road to ... the Red River Colony ... and return ... and that's about it.

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from: Manitoba Historical Maps;   https://www.flickr.com/photos/manitobamaps/3170781512/ 

The image above suffered some kind of computer glitch when it was being digitalized for the internet, but you can still read all the labels. 

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from: Historical Atlas of Manitoba; Warkentin & Ruggles; 1970; Historical & Scientific Society of Manitoba.

Above, the North West Company's name for its installation at The Forks was Fort Gibraltar. On this very flat region of the Prairies ... canoes would approach the fort at water level along the eroded river valleys. From that perspective, the NW Company's post probably took on a Gibraltar-like appearance.

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from: Historical Atlas of Manitoba; Warkentin & Ruggles; 1970; Historical & Scientific Society of Manitoba.

With Fort Garry (the future site of Winnipeg) in the centre of the map ... and Fort William (part of the future Thunder Bay) in the lower right corner ... you can see the river systems and lakes which facilitated commerce and travel early in Canadian history. Weather permitting.

After meeting the wintering partners at Fort William ... Nicholas Garry, Simon McGillivray, paddlers, et al travelled ... across Lake of the Woods, down the Winnipeg River, across part of Lake Winnipeg, and up the Red River ... to reach the Red River Colony ... (and next year's Fort 'Garry' - shhh, it's a surprise!)

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If this card is indeed from 1924 ... they didn't wait long to ensure the postcard said CNR instead of Grand Trunk Pacific Railway Fort Garry Hotel.

Covered in fuzz, here is the fort's back door - again - as it would have appeared from inside the fort.

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On the horizon you can see the Manitoba Legislature at the left, and the Fort Garry Hotel at the right.

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Part of an interesting map from 1911 appears below - back then, the only 'CNR' was the private Canadian Northern Railway.

The quoted link under the image will take you straight to the high-resolution image, which is full of railway history.

from: Manitoba Historical Maps;  https://www.flickr.com/photos/manitobamaps/2825450318/

1944 Warplane Recognition - Fighters, Transports ...

Shark like; hump backed & heavy; heavy set and awkward; ugly & angular. 

These are 'impressions' - not of co-workers or relatives, but aircraft. 

Which aircraft?

Well, which aircraft were used in the war? Um ... Spitfire, Mustang, Me 109, Stuka, B-17, B-29, Lancaster. That's pretty much it, right?

As John Mulaney observed, many of us in the 60-75 age range seem to be cramming for a World War 2 quiz show appearance so we can win $900,000 for our knowledge of Normandy trivia. As 'we' might tell you ... even France and Italy each had more than 7 completely different aircraft types in their respective air forces and some of them were pretty good.

I bought this 96-page, 6 x 9 inch book at one of my favourite used book vendors. 

Not shown in this post: I've also got a 145-page 6 x 9 inch book published by the US Army Air Forces for their Ground Observer Corps (1942, 'Restricted', olive drab manila paper cover). 

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'Serious aviation' was only about 30 years old when World War 2 began, so it really was 'the new technology' for the young people of that era. 

If you must fight in a war ... Some WW1 aviators became fighter pilots because they decided that it was the most attractive way to fight ... and perhaps die.

So young people of the 1930s and 1940s often decided that they would try to be taken on by an air force - rather than risk being drafted into the horrible well-known trench-bound fate of the WW1 infantry. 

Looking at it as an artifact, why was this book produced?

First, it seems as if it's been through a war and probably a couple of basements. It suffers from the general wartime shortages of skilled printing personnel, quality paper and inks.

In the Foreward (shown below), the book is said to include the 'First Series' of aircraft which are required study for the Initial Training Schools - except for aircraft on the 'secret list'. There was a book covering the 'Second Series' of aircraft - from the same publisher - for the more advanced flying, bombing, gunnery, and observer schools. Neither of these Canadian books is an official publication.

... so who was the book's intended 'non-official' audience? 

1) Young, motivated, prospective applicants to the air force might have used this book to pre-study, hoping it would give them an advantage. However, only the youngest, most physically ideal applicants would find their way into a fighter aircraft cockpit. By 1944, the planners were probably looking at which aviation positions and aircraft to cut when peace came to Europe.

2) Older Canadians, aspiring to be Marshals of the Royal Air Force (from their armchairs) might be quite interested in becoming experts on modern military aircraft.

3) And if one was being shipped overseas with any branch of the armed services, perhaps a general overview of what might be aiming bullets and bombs at you would be a handy/fun thing to have. 

In contrast to the contents of this book ... the US Ground Observer Corps book only has ONE high-quality full-page 'front-3/4-view' photograph of each aircraft. But it has FOUR different silhouettes for each aircraft and absolutely no technical data on them. It spends a great deal of time on how to observe and describe all the different features of aircraft - to make the user a perceptive and observant 'bird watcher'.

... Because ... in the extremely unlikely event that you spot a Geschwader of Stukas flying over Chicago ... the fact that they have "single inline liquid cooled 1150hp 12-cylinder Junkers 'Jumo' 211D engines" is not something the Plotter at the Army Filter Center will want to know when you ring them up.

After Pearl Harbor, the US was probably pretty determined to ensure it knew exactly which aircraft were approaching its shores ... so carefully devised reference books and procedures were developed.

Realistically, this was probably a mass-market book for those interested in the warplanes in general. Many of the newer aircraft circa 1944 (e.g. Fw 190) are not included. Furthermore, there are absolutely no examples of any 4-engined aircraft in this book at all. It is almost a keepsake souvenir of the twin-engined bombers of the first years of the war - like the Whitley.

Below, the pages of aircraft examples are presented in order by page number.

... Sometimes, just learning the nomenclature used in a field of knowledge is half the fun.