The Iron Curtain

It was time to switch out my header for something of a winter sensibility. This one was taken on the Rideau Canal skateway last winter, near to where the skating route begins downtown. 

This map shows the movements of the majority of the Canadian military in the last stages of World War Two in Europe, sweeping through the Netherlands to free the country, as well as venturing into the fallen Germany.

One of the positive aspects of that war is the enduring friendship between Canada and the Netherlands. The Dutch have never forgotten what Canadian soldiers did for them.

When Canadian veterans have returned to visit the Netherlands, the Dutch citizens have come out to cheer them. Now there are so few veterans of that war left, and less by the year.

Canada had sheltered Crown Princess Juliana of the Netherlands during the war, as well as her daughters- one of whom was born here in Ottawa. Following the war, many Dutch families immigrated to begin new lives in Canada, mine included. 

Among the legacies of that friendship is the Tulip Festival.

Six years of war on an unimaginable scale in Europe were done. 

The next section of the Museum concerns itself with the Cold War and beyond. After the war, Canada stepped up its military presence in the northern reaches of the country.

But a new conflict was coming- the Cold War. Quotes from those early years of the standoff are found here.

The Cold War began right here in Ottawa- the Gouzenko Affair. Igor Gouzenko was a clerk in the Soviet embassy here who gathered evidence that the Soviets were spying on their Western allies, particularly about the atomic program. He brought that evidence to the Canadian authorities, and so decades of perpetual tension and proxy wars soon began.

He and his family were given a new life in Canada, as well as protection. Gouzenko took to writing, both his own story and fiction.