 |
| Canadian troops leaving Saint John, New Brunswick for Europe, June 1915 |
 |
| Second World War recruitment poster |
You do not have to be from New Brunswick to appreciate the new exhibition at the Canadian War Museum in Ottawa entitled: New Brunswickers in Wartime, 1914 - 1946.
The show features more than 300 artifacts from both World Wars and puts a human face to the conflicts and their aftermath.
Photographs, film clips, paintings, posters, German war souvenirs, uniforms, gas masks, and a variety of other artifacts all contribute to this worthwhile exhibit.
Black and white photographs from 1915 show thousands of people – both military and civilian – lining the port of Saint John, as members of the 26th New Brunswick Battalion leave for Europe. Some are at the water's edge, some are on nearby rooftops, while others are several metres off the ground, clutching on to telephone poles. These are incredible haunting photographs because we know that many of the enlisted men on the ship looking at their loved ones never made it home.
Other photographs show nurses from New Brunswick working in field hospitals in various theatres of war.
Documents and posters encouraged people on the home front to grow their own food and increase their productivity to help the war effort.
The New Brunswick Museum organized the initial exhibition in 2005 to commemorate the Year of the Veteran and the 60th anniversary of the end of the Second World War. This is the first presentation outside New Brunswick. The exhibition will run in Ottawa until April 9, 2012, Vimy Ridge Day.
Posts
