The membership list has been updated, with a new member added and member #456’s contact information changed.

I have become aware of an upcoming conference in Rocky Mountain House, Alberta, hosted by the Centre for Rupert’s Land Studies, situated at the University of Winnipeg, from May 14-16. While this does not deal exclusively with fortifications, it will be about the Canadian fur trade and will no doubt touch on fur trade forts and posts. If you would like some information you can either contact me (malekjon@shaw.ca) or check the web page out for yourself at http://www.uwinnipeg.ca/academic/ic/rupert/collo2008.html. There is also a tour planned of Rocky Mountain House Historic Site by an archaeologist on May 16th (which is incidentally one day before it is planned to be open to the public for the season). This may be an excellent opportunity for some Site O members to meet in person at an academic conference. If you are interested in such a possibility, please contact me.

A final note for this post regards the social bookmarking website called Del.icio.us (located at http://del.icio.us). I created an account for Site O Canada a while ago, but there seems to have been no response to it, quite possibly because of a failure on my part to explain it adequately. The steps being taken recently to make the internet a strong social networking tool (the best example being Myspace.com or Facebook) has produced great possibilities. The idea behind Del.icio.us is to create an online forum for individuals to place their internet bookmarks. The many benefits of this, as opposed to simply making a bookmark on your computer’s web browser, is that you can access it anywhere as the bookmarks (or, more accurately, TAGS) are stored online, not on your hard drive. As well, you are able to share (or not share) your tags with others on the internet, most importantly friends and family, as well as suggesting websites you feel they may wish to tag themselves. The site for Site O Canada’s links is available here http://del.icio.us/siteocanada. I’m always trying to make Site O Canada more interactive for members world wide and I believe this web tool would be a great method of linking members together, with each other and with this site. I encourage you to sign up (yes, it is free!) and start sharing your Site O related links with us. For those who already have an account and would like to start sending links to Site O, you need to enter “for:siteocanada” into the TAG text-box. If you want more information on Del.icio.us and how it works, you can visit their site at http://del.icio.us. I encourage you all, not just those members within Canada, to sign up for an account, or at least peruse through the links that I have added so far.

Best wishes to you all,

– JGM

Greetings all and a happy New Year. I hope it was safe and fun for all!

On the first day of the year I made a trip out to the two forts that remain in Winnipeg, Fort Gibraltar and Upper Fort Garry (gate). It was a bright and crisp day and the forts were very beautiful in the snow. I think with the developments regarding Upper Fort Garry over the past year, a bright new round of pictures of the old Fort, looking so revitalized in the fresh snow and air, would be a good start to the year and the efforts of the Friends of Upper Fort Garry as they begin the daunting task of raising money. It is important to remember what we are standing up for, and the best reminder sometimes is a simple picture.  You can access the pictures here: http://www.flickr.com/photos/jonmalek/sets/72157603604378542/

Best wishes to you all in the new year.

– JGM