On Friday night, a fire broke out in one of Quebec City’s historic sites, destroying nearly 80% of the building. Thankfully, investigators claim that this was not an act of vandalism, however the 4-alarm fire nearly destroyed the barracks that housed many historic relics of WWI, WWII, and the Louis Riel Rebellion. The armoury was built in 1884, and although it was not used to store military equipment, it housed many artifacts. As well as those already mentioned, it contained many Canadian military souvenirs. Fortunately, some of these vestiges of Canada’s past were recovered, although many no doubt have been lost forever. As a sign of the city’s pride and resilience, Quebec City’s mayor, Régis Labeaume, has already called on Ottawa to begin its reconstruction.

The loss has been called catastrophic,  but thankfully no lives were lost. The building, which overlooked the Plains of Abraham, boosted the largest free standing wood ceiling in Canada.

I had the opportunity to visit Quebec City this past summer, although for only a day.  I was only able to explore the old city, and unfortunately did not get to venture to the Plains. However, from that brief visit it was obvious how much architectural history and heritage that great city has. It saddens me that I was unable to see the Manege Militaire before this fire. However, the exterior for the most part remains, and photos have captured its grandeur, the same grandeur that characterizes the old structures of Quebec City, of Quebec, and so much of Canada. It is always a shame when things like this happen, and it is always worse when the structure contained historic artifacts within. But it reminds us all of the fragility of history, and of the relics that those who have gone before us have left. We are still in history; this fire, in the future, will be historic. It will be viewed as a tragedy, as yet another victim of the ravages of time; and yet, what will also remain to all of poseterity is the reaction of Quebec City, and of Canada. Our actions in events like this not only speak to our respect of the past, of our past, but they serve as a statement to future generations. They directly reflect the pride we have in our country, our military, and our past. So, while we mourn the near destruction of one of Quebec’s historic treasures, it is important to recognize that we are now partaking in that building’s history; through our care, it shall once again be restored and handed down to our future generations, as it had been passed on to us.

Links 

Manege Militare I (pre-fire)
Manege Militaire II (pre-fire)
CTV.ca Article
CBC.ca Article

– JGM

2008 marks the 10th anniversary of SITEO, and is the 6th year of SITEO Canada. As a sort of commemoration of this landmark, Joe Kaufmann, founder of SITEO, has come up with the idea for a 10th Anniversary SITEO Journal, which will be comprised soley of articles submitted by members!

Please note that the following information has been adapted from Al Scadden’s SITEO Pacific website, http://homepages.paradise.net.nz/jascadde/index.html:

SITE O International: 10th Anniversary Journal?

26/03/2008: 2008 is the 10^th Anniversary of SITE O. This might be an appropriate time to put out a SITE O Journal, something like that of the Coast Defense Study Group or that of the Fortress Study Group. (We will have to limit it to black and white illustrations.) I do not know how many of you are interested in taking part, but here are the details:

1. SITE O is free and shall remain that way. Thus, we need no treasurer and do not have to file official papers for a tax-exempt status. The membership is made up of those who have a common interest in fortification and artillery and nothing is required of the membership in the way of obligations. For many of you, you have found that the organization has put you in contact with people around the World. Many members have also have joined the Coast Defense Study Group or the Fortress Study Group, but others have not. In some cases, these two groups have even published articles by our members and used them to help organize tours. Since we do not have any funds - and never will, if we do put out a journal those members that want a copy will have to purchase it directly from the publisher and not from SITEO.

2. The SITE O Journal will be published by Merriam Press which is a small operation that does professional work. Some of the people who have published with it in the past have now become well known authors after doing some of their first articles for Merriam’s World War II magazine or books with the Merriam Press. They included the following:

Steve Zaloga did articles and is now well-known for his Osprey books and other publications.

Gordon Rottman did an article and is well-known for his Osprey books.

Thomas L. Jentz did articles and is well known for his books on German armor published by Schiffer and other companies.

Bill Auerbach did articles and later did articles for AFV News and published a the Panzerwrecks series.

The late Rear Admiral Kemp Tolley did articles and later published books with Naval Insititute Press.

Hugh Page Taylor did an article and later did a series on the SS for Bender.

Charles H Bogart did artilces and the book Controlled Mines (still available).

William Wolf did articles and a book on German Guided Missiles. He has since published books with Schiffer.

Bruce Culver did articles and later did a number of armor books for Squadron and Uwe Feist.

General David Zabecki did two of his books and later published with two major scholarly publishers books on World War I and World War II. He also became an editor of Viet Nam Magazine.

3. The articles in the Journal can be of any length and can have any number of illustrations. Only Black & White illustrations will be used, although a few color photos may be on the cover. The articles can be mostly illustrations with little text or they can be all text. The type of articles sought are:

a. Fortifications - any region and any period of time.

b. Artillery - it would be preferable for these to be on types used in fortifications or against fortifications. Otherwise, heavy - and railway artillery, would be acceptable.

c. Historic events – related to either fortifications or artillery.

4. Each person contributing an article and illustrations is responsible for any required permissions. The ownership of the articles remains with the author, in the event that he wants to re-publish it somewhere else, later. Merriam, himself, will copyright the journal, but there will be a disclaimer stating the authors are responsible for the content of their articles – and retain ownership of them.

5. Of course, I (Joe Kaufmann) do not know if there are enough of you interested in preparing articles. You will have to contact me and let me know in a few sentences what you propose and how many pages (illustrations are normally 2 per page). If not enough of you are interested in doing articles, we will not attempt to do the project. If too many of you should want to do articles, we (the Regional Directors and I) will select the articles and try to represent each region. If there is enough interest, we can do a journal each year.

Those of you interested in preparing articles, please let me know in the next few weeks. Those of you who do not want to write articles, but would probably purchase a copy of the journal should also let me know. My e-mail address is: joek05@sbcglobal.net Joe Kaufmann

This is a very exciting opporunity for members of SITEO to use the organization, and to get themselves published. If you have any further inquiriers, please forward to to Joe Kaufmann at joek05@sbcglobal.net or to me, Jon Malek, at malekjon@shaw.ca 

– JGM

I just want to take a quick moment to inform SITE O Canada’s readers that the Buhler family, a family of great chartiy to Winnipeg, have generously donated $500K to the Friends of Upper Fort Garry’s cause. As of the evening of March 14th, they have 3 of 3.5 million needed by the 31st. I am not sure if this takes the Buhler donation. If you haven’t seen the site yet, you may visit it at http://www.upperfortgarry.com.

Read the short article here: http://www.cjob.com/news/index.aspx?src=loc&mc=local&rem=87795

Lets keep our fingers crossed.

– JGM

Greetings all,

I hope you all got the chance to listen to the CJOB broadcast today, it was a great session. One of my favourite lines sums up the goal of the FUFG, as I see it: “Not just saving, but building on the site.”

For those of you interested to help the Fort, a website has been set up to collect donations. $3.5 million is needed by the end of March! Anything is appreciated by the organization - $5, $15, $20, whatever you can. You can get to the site at http://www.upperfortgarry.com/. Anything that you give will go a long way, and will be appreciated. Its not that often that the lovers of history get such an excellent chance to save a piece of heritage, important not just to Winnipeg, but to Canada, North America, and even European colonial history.

I would also like to repost the link to the petition started by Site O Canada, which has received tremendous support. http://siteocanada.start-a-petition.com. Please visit the petition and add your voice if you haven’t yet.

Best wishes!

– JGM

Hello all, things with the Fort Garry mission have been going very well. On Thursday, 28 February 2008 all morning from 9:00 till noon (CST) we will be holding a live CJOB radio showat the UFG site, to promote the project with various guests etc. I encourage you all to listen in and show your support! For those of you who do not reside in Winnipeg, can listen to the broadcast off of CJOB’s website: http://www.cjob.com/. The option for the online radio is near the top. Listen in!

– JGM