Warfare From Time Immemorial

During my visit to the War Museum, the temporary exhibits gallery wasn't open, but an exhibit on life in the Second World War was being set up at the time. Moving beyond, on the way to the permanent galleries area of the Museum, there are a series of photographs rendered in large scale along the path.

The one seen on the left here dates to 1940, a photograph titled Wait For Me, Daddy, and was reproduced on a special Canadian 2014 two dollar coin. My Canadian readers might have one. At right are soldiers of the First World War.

The collection is organized into five areas, from time immemorial to the present day. The first section concentrates on early wars, and starts with the First Nations, Panels, artifacts, and reproductions examine tribal conflict thousands of years before Europeans came into the New World.

Eventually, European contact would change everything, including how First Nations people conducted war. The so called Post-Contact Wars would bring the French into conflict, siding with one peoples against another.

A display case includes a tomahawk and alliance medal. The description below notes that French metalwork made a deadly weapon like the tomahawk even deadlier.

In time, the French and Indian War would rise up in North America between France and Britain, with First Nations tribes jockeying for position. It was known elsewhere as the Seven Years War, raging across the globe. Churchill called it the first truly global war.