A week or so ago, I featured an image from Dad’s photo album from his days as a radar man on the remote coast of Labrador during World War 2. That image was a post card of the T.S.S. North Star, a luxury cruise ship that was converted to a military transport ship for the war.
Taking up a few pages of the photo album was a set of postcards depicting Eastern Canada in the 1930’s and 1940’s. Below are six of those postcards plus a few bonus images featuring my father’s wartime experience through the eyes of his own camera.
At the time the above image was taken, the population of Moncton, New Brunswick was around 20,000. The ‘Hub’ of Canada’s maritime provinces now is home to around 69,000 inhabitants in the city proper and around 143,000 in the metro area.
The iconic Perce Rock sits at the tip of the Gaspe Peninsula in southeastern Quebec. The waters of the Gulf of St. Lawrence surround this harsh rock island that boasts one of the world’s largest natural arches located in water. At its highest, Perce Rock rises 88 metres or 289 feet above the seas below. Looking at more recent pictures, the buildings shown at the point above are quite a bit the same today.
Opened in June, 1930, the Nova Scotian Hotel in Halifax, Nova Scotia was built by Canadian National Railways. The building has been added onto over the years and was extensively renovated in the 1990’s. It is now known as the Westin Nova Scotian, a name it has had since 1996.
The Canadian National Central Station in Montreal, Quebec was brand new when my father purchased this postcard. The train station was opened in 1943. In the 1960’s, Central Station was rebuilt and now stands mostly hidden, shrowded by skyscrapers.
The above view of Montreal, Quebec from Mont Royal stands in stark contrast to the same view today. In October, 2013, I put up some images taken from this very same spot – check out that article here: Images of Montreal, Quebec.
The viewing area atop Mount Royal is called the Kondiaronk Belverdere and was built in 1906. At the back of the semi-circle viewing area is the Mount Royal Chalet. Way back, between 1885 and 1920, the Mount Royal Funicular Railway shuttled visitors up the steep hill to enjoy the views. Now, there is a lengthy, bending staircase to walk up, or you can just drive and park on the other side.
The Montreal Harbour Bridge was actually renamed the Jacques Cartier Bridge in 1934 to commemorate the 400th anniversary of Cartier’s first voyage up the St. Lawrence River. The bridge stands today (some would say barely) and connects the main island of Montreal with Longueuil.
The bridge is 2,725 metres or 8,940 feet in length and 104 metres or 341 feet high at it’s peak. The Montreal Harbour Bridge was opened for traffic on May 14, 1930.
Prior to joining the Air Force, my father was in the boy scouts. The above image shows a scrap metal drive early in the war. My father is standing about dead centre. It’s quite hard for us today to understand the kind of hardship that this war brought. All across North America, metal drives took place on a regular basis just to gather enough steel to manufacture equipment like planes, bombs, etc.
Perhaps my favourite picture in his personal collection. This is a supply plane dropping off at the remote radar station where my Dad was until just after the war ended. Because it was on a small island off the coast of Labrador and Newfoundland and Labrador had not joined Canada as the tenth province at the time, this was considered as overseas service.
The window for supply planes to land was limited because of the length winters. Sometimes, they simply couldn’t and supplies were drop shipped. Notice the skis for landing gear!
The one bonus of being stationed in a harsh middle of nowhere was getting to see something on a regular basis that people now pay thousands of dollars for. This iceberg floated into the little bay where the main camp was and I believe they even boated out and climbed onboard.
