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, boasted 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

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

Yesterday the Downtown Development Council, the council responsible for the plot of land which holds the Upper Fort Garry gate, decided in favour of Friends of Upper Fort Garry. Please read the story below, lifted from Winnipeg Free Press:

The land where Upper Fort Garry once stood will become a brand-new heritage park if three dozen of Winnipeg’s most prominent citizens can raise $10 million in less than four months.

In a shocker of a vote on Thursday, city council’s downtown development committee decided to give heritage group Friends of Upper Fort Garry a chance to build a $12.5-million heritage park and interpretive centre on the site of the city’s birthplace, provided they come up with 80 per cent of the cash before March 31.The move, which follows months of lobbying by the Friends, effectively shelves an earlier decision to sell a smaller chunk of the land to Crystal Developers, which wants to build a 20-storey apartment building at the corner of Assiniboine Avenue and Fort Street.

Now the Friends of Upper Fort Garry have been given the chance to build a heritage park that would cover most of a city block bounded by Main Street, Assiniboine Avenue and Fort Street, provided they meet the fundraising deadline and also purchase the Grain Exchange Curling Club, which sits northwest of the surplus city land.

“This is what we’ve been waiting for and we’re raring to go. We’re confident we can meet the city’s challenge,” said Harold Buchwald, a spokesman for the Friends, whose ranks include philanthropic business people such as Hartley Richardson, John Buhler and Leonard Asper and former politicians such as Duff Roblin, Gary Filmon, Ed Schreyer and Bill Norrie.

If the Friends fail to meet the terms laid out by city council, the southwest corner of the land will revert to Crystal Developers, who will then proceed with its apartment building plans.

Crystal owner Ruben Spletzer said he is not thrilled city council backtracked on an earlier decision to sell his company part of the land, but said he’s learned not to get too upset by politicians.

“You learn to shake your head and not take them seriously sometimes, because you would go crazy if you did,” he said. “However, there is history on that piece of land and anything can happen.”

Thursday’s surprising vote follows a tumultuous seven months following the downtown development committee’s May decision to sell Crystal 24,400 square feet of land for $1.8 million.

City planners recommended Crystal’s bid over a proposal to build a 35-storey skyscraper as well as the Friends’ plans for a heritage park that would have required funding from city council.

For months, city hall ignored pleas from the Friends to reconsider the sale. But when an October archeological dig found the edge of Upper Fort Garry was located further west, the size of the land available for Crystal was reduced by 3,000 square feet, downsizing the scale of the apartment project from 180 to 120 units.

While city planners proposed to reduce the price of the land to $1.2 million, two city councillors — downtown development chair Russ Wyatt and committee member Jenny Gerbasi — reconsidered the historical park idea, forcing Mayor Sam Katz to step in with a plan to give the Friends a chance, albeit within a limited time frame.

“We were able to broker a deal everybody is content with. I’m not happy a company that’s done everything right has been placed in a holding pattern for four months, but now we can see if the Friends can do what they say they’re able to do,” Katz said.

The actual vote at downtown development committee was 3-2, with Wyatt and Gerbasi opposing the plan because they no longer wish to see an apartment building go up on part of the land, regardless of whether the Friends succeed at raising $10 million.”Our downtown is so big, there are plenty of places for an apartment building. The argument this is housing versus heritage is nonsense,” Wyatt said. “You wouldn’t put an apartment building on the Plains of Abraham, so why put one here?”

Voting in favour of the plan were councillors Justin Swandel and Gord Steeves, along with Katz, who attended his first downtown development meeting since 2004, when the mayor used to chair the committee.

Katz rarely sits in on committee meetings he does not chair, according to records from the city clerk’s office. Before Thursday’s closed-door vote, he has exercised his ex officio power only once — in 2005, he attended a special meeting of the protection committee to vote in favour of aggressive panhandling legislation.

Wyatt conceded it is rare to see the mayor and a committee chair disagree, but said he voted with his conscience and now simply wants to encourage Winnipeggers to get behind the Friends of Upper Fort Garry.

While the Friends take a stab at fundraising, Crystal Developers will turn its attention to developing land alongside Sterling Lyon Parkway, owner Spletzer said.

“This gives them a chance to put their money where their mouth is,” he said.

According to Buchwald, the group has already raised $300,000 and has commitments for an additional $200,000.

The article also had this succinct little time line of events since September 2006:

Timeline of events

The twists and turns in Winnipeg’s efforts to redevelop the former site of Upper Fort Garry, the city’s birthplace:

September 2006: The city issues a call for proposals to redevelop surplus land at 100 Main St., which sits above the former site of Upper Fort Garry, as well as a parking lot to the southwest. Three proposals are later short-listed: a 20-storey apartment building, a 35-storey skyscraper and a $12.5-million heritage park with an interpretive centre.

May 2007: City council’s downtown development committee votes to sell the southwest parcel for $1.8 million to apartment proponent Crystal Developers, but also asks city planners to sit down with Friends of Upper Fort Garry to hash out plans for a heritage park on the Main Street portion of the surplus land.

June 2007: Discussions between Crystal and the Friends prove fruitless, as the heritage group claims a historical park won’t work with an apartment building looming to the southwest. The Friends begin lobbying city councillors.

October 2007: An archeological dig finds the western edge of Upper Fort Garry three metres to the west of where it was expected, reducing the footprint available to Crystal Developers. City planners later propose a reduction of the sale price to $1.2 million.

November 2007: Downtown development chairman Russ Wyatt declares he no longer supports the idea of an apartment building southwest of the former fort and prefers the idea of a heritage park.

December 2007: The downtown development committee votes to shelve the Crystal sale and give the Friends a chance to develop a heritage park on both parcels of surplus land, provided they produce a business plan by Feb. 1, raise $10 million by March 31 and also purchase the Grain Exchange Curling Club on Fort Street.

Let us hope for the best! Please send any comments to me through email, at malekjon@shaw.ca.

– JGM

Thanks to Cindy Tugwell, from Friends of Upper Fort Garry (also the Manitoba Governor for Heritage Canada), for providing me with this article from the Winnipeg Free Press last Saturday, which contained some good news for our cause:

The article stated that “under the Heritage Act archeologist Sid
Kroeker went searching for the round, 26-meter-in diameter limestone foundation of the northwest bastion. The exact location is important because the city and the developer had committed to building the highrise apartment on the edge, but not on top, of the original fort’s footprint. So a back hoe dug deep into several predetermined locations of the parking lot near the corner of Main and Assiniboine. Out popped what could be the Friends of Upper Fort Garry’s ace in the archeloogical hole, as it were. Because much to archeologist Sid Kroeker’s surprise, the northwest bastion wasn’t where he, the city or the developer thought it was. It was approximately three metres or 10 feet further west than they anticipated, and it may make the development plan unviable. The lot if now 10 feet shorter. That’s not even allowing for any government order that may demand another metre of
buffer between the proposed highrise and the fort footprint. Ruben Spletzer of Crystal Developers had no comment. Long live Upper Fort Garry.”

That’s good news indeed, and not just for the current issue; anything learned about the original plan of the Fort is good news!

I’ll keep everyone abreast of what happens next as I am able.

– JGM