Site "Oh" Canada

Great Escape digital tour

Jon G. Malek — Mon, 25 Aug 2008 20:14:43 +0000

Here is an interesting link I got through email giving an eTour of the “Harry” tunnel that Allied prisoners at the Nazi POW camp Stalag Luft III ingeniously engineered for the “Great Escape”. Very interesting tour based on a drawing down by one of the POWs, Ley Kenyon.

Tunnel Harry

- JGM

the Allied airmen imprisoned at the
Nazi POW camp Stalag Luft III secretly engineered

Quebec City Armoury Burns

Jon G. Malek — Sun, 06 Apr 2008 04:11:19 +0000

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

SITEO 10th Anniversary

Jon G. Malek — Mon, 31 Mar 2008 00:26:07 +0000

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

Buhler Donation

Jon G. Malek — Sat, 15 Mar 2008 04:17:04 +0000

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

Donate to Upper Fort Garry

Jon G. Malek — Thu, 28 Feb 2008 15:38:29 +0000

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

Friends of Upper Fort Garry at CJOB

Jon G. Malek — Thu, 28 Feb 2008 00:38:08 +0000

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

$1.5 Million from Province

Jon G. Malek — Tue, 05 Feb 2008 22:47:34 +0000

It has been reported today that the Manitoba Provincial government will be putting $1.5 million to the Friends of Upper Fort Garry to help them in their campaign to raise the money needed to purchase the lot of land that currently holds the Upper Fort Garry gate. This is only fitting, as the Fort saw the birthplace of the provincial government in 1870 with its occupation by Louis Riel for his provisional provincial government.

To read the brief story, visit http://www.winnipegsun.com/News/Manitoba/2008/02/05/4828474.html

– JGM

Membership List update

Jon G. Malek — Sat, 26 Jan 2008 21:58:21 +0000

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

Visit to the Forts

Jon G. Malek — Thu, 03 Jan 2008 03:15:16 +0000

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

Season’s Greetings

Jon G. Malek — Wed, 26 Dec 2007 05:23:01 +0000

After a day full of family and friends, I would like to take a moment to wish all of you who are celebrating this season the best wishes. May the season bring what is truly important in life - happiness and the company of those we care about.

Happy Holidays

– JGM