New Challenges For The Canadian Nation

A reminder to those in the area: Winterlude starts up this Friday and runs until February 19th.

Yesterday I gave a glimpse of this. Here we have a quilt made by a women's auxiliary group in the Prairies in the 1930s, done for a fundraiser during the Depression. It now is home here.

The CBC rose up during this era, a public broadcaster in both English and French (where it's called Radio-Canada). Initially a radio network, it later included television and then internet streaming, still around today.

The Depression broke when the world went back to war, and Canada was part of the Second World War from the start, committing military assets at sea, on land, and in the air.

The photograph at bottom features our wartime prime minister, William Lyon Mackenzie King. At top, taken during the First Quebec Conference, Mackenzie King and Winston Churchill are seen standing, with Franklin Roosevelt and the Earl of Athlone, the Governor-General at the time, both sitting.

The country committed itself fully to the war effort, with industry geared towards war production. It would also be a time of tension, as the question of whether or not conscription would be needed came up.

And it ended in victory. This photograph of a smiling man and woman in Vancouver says it all.

Families welcomed back their loved ones in the weeks and months that followed. But not everyone made it home. There would be memories of those no longer there, and the empty chair at the table.

Following the war, there was a movement in Newfoundland, which had been a separate dominion, as to the idea of joining Canada. A referendum was called for by the premier, Joey Smallwood, and it passed. In 1949, Newfoundland became the tenth province.

Smallwood, seen here among a crowd, has been deemed to be the last Father of Confederation for his work in bringing the province into the country. We'll be back to this tour after the theme day.