War Museum Controversy and Follow-up Thread [merged]

[Mineguy]

Ref mr riel on a side note i have a story i just cant not tell here. I can remember being in waterpeg manitoba in 1997 during the flood and we were around this area called the bronkild dike or somthing doing our engr stuff. Well...on the news that evening they had a direct great great grandson or somthing (im pretty sure it was the grand son and not cousin or somthing) of louis Riel giving an interview about efforts in his neighborhood while he was in front of his house sandbagging. Well we were in the exact same neighborhood and working and our troop commander was gen middletons great great grandson. What a coincedence.The main thing though is even the people who i thought were history buffs from previous conversation didnt even seem to care or find it one of those weird lucky co incedences that it really was! :

 

[sigpig]

I always thought it was the North West Rebellion.  I guess "Rebellion" is too aggressive for our politically correct politicians.  Since when was it ever a "Resistance"????

In 1986 or 87 the Strat officers visited the Batoche battlefield site. There is a beautiful, large, expensive interpretive centre where they showed a presentation of the battle with pictures, movies, mannequins, automated actors. All the trimmings, very well done and impressive. Very biased towards the Metis side. All of these army officers were looking at each other saying, "When did we become the bad guys?"

 

[mdh]

Lahr_Brat

Riel is regularly portrayed as some sort of Che Guvera of the Prairies.   The truth is that Riel was considered a dangerous Catholic apostate - nowhere more so than in 19th century Ultra-Montaine Quebec whose unreconstructed Catholicism didn't take kindly to people declaring themselves personally ordained by God to lead the Metis. As for Thomas Scott - whom Riel executed after a show trial - historians routinely describe him as an unreasonable and obstreperous bigot.   But as Peter Brimelow pointed out in his screed on Canadian historiography - Scott's real crime was remaining loyal to Canada - something he paid for with his life.

cheers, mdh

 

[Infanteer]

North-West Resistence?  WTF?  Seems the CWM has got it right again.... :

 

[KevinB]

Well I stayed out of posting - since I swore not to go.

BUT I went.

Some VERY interesting recreating of history there.

Plains of Abraham - apparent the Canadians fought the British...
  I may have accepted Canadiennes - but WTF Canadians?

The WHOLE North West Rebellion was a farce.

Boer War - did not 100% jibe with how it was intially rendered to me - but I will defer since I am not in anyway a SME in that area.

A wide variety of Peacekeeping innacuracies.



I want to take back part of my original bile on the Matchee and Brown painting -- ALL her work SUCKS not just those two pictures, I went with two buddies - one an was ex CF (got out in '95) and the other never past cadets -- both agreed those pics where in ppor taste and generally out of the element of the rest of the museum.

Generally it appears to be a work in progress.

 

[pronto]

North-West Resistence?   WTF?   Seems the CWM has got it right again.... :

Hmmm time for the RCMP, and all those other regiments to get out the official regimental embroiderer to change the wording on those regimental colours...

 

[Cloud Cover]

Well I stayed out of posting - since I swore not to go.

Plains of Abraham - apparent the Canadians fought the British...
  I may have accepted Canadiennes - but WTF Canadians?

You're joking, right?

 

[Infanteer]

That's odd - I could of swore Montcalm was from France.... ???

This is approaching farcical in nature.

 

[KevinB]

sadly I am not kidding.

The did mention French Regulars, Indians (from what band I cant recall) and CANADIANS

 

[Cloud Cover]

Okay... Deep cleansing breath.... All is calm ...  :-X

Can anybody provide me with an explanation for this that has an air of reality to it?

 

[Edward Campbell]

Okay... Deep cleansing breath.... All is calm ...  :-X

Can anybody provide me with an explanation for this that has an air of reality to it?

Go back just a few years, less than five, I think: Jean Chrétien said something like, "For me, I wish da French had won da battle on da Plains of Abraham."

It isn't just Chrétien; he was speaking for millions, yes millions of French Canadians from whom 1759 is still a tragedy.  The Canadian cultural agenda, for all Canadians, everywhere, has been in the firm grip of that minority, and some fellow travelers, since 1968.  They believe that Canada is French with a persistent, unwelcome Anglo political/legal overlay â “ something which never should have happened and, for many, something which should, can and will be shrugged off.

See also: Keith Spicer, on almost any topic.

 

[KevinB]

News flash for the rest of Canada, we are English - we won - SUCK IT UP...  ;D

Unfortunately Ed hti the nail on the head (and much more elquently than I could ever hope to.)

 

[Michael Dorosh]

News flash for the rest of Canada, we are English - we won - SUCK IT UP...   ;D

Unfortunately Ed hti the nail on the head (and much more elquently than I could ever hope to.)

No need to thank me; my predecessors at that point in time were somewhere in Galicia...

 

[pronto]

This is off topic, but hey... My wife and I recently spent some time in Quebec City. The vaunted plains of Abraham were desecrated as follows: an in-line skate ring, a running track, a boatload of sunbathing quebecers in speedos, an outdoor playground, an ice cream stand, a roundabout, lots of one way streets, a rather bad museum-y thingie, a large expanse of burnt grass, and an incomplete citadel. O yea, the booming base from an impromptu rock concert. A sad, sad commentary on a battlefield where soldiers lost their lives. I was shocked, appalled and just out-right saddened.

 

[KevinB]

Your surprised?

I guess the monument to "YOU LOST FRENCHIE" was a little too much for them 

Realistically - if we put monuments everywhere soliders have died over th world 0 we'd all be living in some pretty tall aparatment and all the areable land would be cemetaries.

 

[geo]

you can't seriously expect the Gov't, any Gov't to cordon off the Plains of Abraham in perpetuity - it doesn't make any sense at all.
Did they cordon off the area around Waterloo? of course not - it does not make sense at all.
Did the US cordon off all their Revolutionary war battlefields? of course not - it does not make sense at all.
Let's wake up and smell the Café & croissants

 

[Slim]

Did the US cordon off all their Revolutionary war battlefields? of course not

Well actually...

http://www.nps.gov/gett/
http://www.nps.gov/mana/home.htm
http://www.nps.gov/anti/


http://www.pc.gc.ca/lhn-nhs/on/queenston/index_e.asp
http://www.city.toronto.on.ca/culture/fort_york.htm
http://www.pc.gc.ca/lhn-nhs/on/fortgeorge/index_e.asp

 

[Michael Dorosh]

Well actually...

http://www.nps.gov/gett/
http://www.nps.gov/mana/home.htm
http://www.nps.gov/anti/


http://www.pc.gc.ca/lhn-nhs/on/queenston/index_e.asp
http://www.city.toronto.on.ca/culture/fort_york.htm
http://www.pc.gc.ca/lhn-nhs/on/fortgeorge/index_e.asp

Have you noticed where the Alamo is these days, Slim?  And the 1836 war with Mexico is just as big in the hearts of Texans as the Revolutionary War is to a Virginian or New Englander....

 

[jmacleod]

The National Historic Site, The Plains of Abraham is under the control of the National Battlefields
Commission, and have been since 1908 - go to the site "The Plains of Abraham" for updated
information, and the 100th Anniversary of the site planned for 2008. The Battle on the Plains
of Abraham (Abraham's Farm) changed the course of North American history, and decided the
fate of what was then French North America - for an historic perception of those historic days
go to Francis Parkman "Montcalm and Wolfe" - and Gordon Donaldson, "The Battle for a Continent"
- just a point of interest; the uniforms worn by the reanactors in French and British uniforms of
the period were originally provided by the MacDonald-Stewart Trust Fund (MacDonald Tobacco)
a great supporter of historic sites in Canada for many years. The site has been well preserved, but
it should not permit any overt commercialization, other than the Museum , Interpretation Centre
and Gift Shop. It should be treated like the Louisbourg Fortress in Nova Scotia, or the Gettyburg
National Historic Battlefield in the United States. MacLeod

 

[pronto]

Nah, I am not really expecting the whole plains to be preserved. That'd be as silly as can be. I DO expect a liitle reverence somewhere on the plains though. Somewhere? Anywhere? The speedos and Jazz fusion were just over the top. Maybe something like Queenston?

KevinB, your email made me laugh out loud! Thanks