On Jan. 12, the government of Sir Wilfrid Laurier introduced the Naval Service Act. This act established the Royal Canadian Navy as of May 4, 1910. Prior to the Act, Canada did not have any navy and relied on the support of the British Royal Navy.
Due to the buildup in arms between Britain and Germany in 1909, the Laurier government made the decision to create a navy of its own. This Act was heavily opposed in various parts of Canada, especially French Canada, who worried that it would push Canada into a deeper involvement in imperial affairs.
Those who supported the British Empire also thought the act did too little to help the Royal Navy, which made it unpopular on both sides for Laurier. Robert Borden, leader of the Conservatives and the Official Opposition, used the anger of the bill to win the 1911 election. With that win, he cancelled the plan to build warships and cut the budget of the navy. He then passed the Naval Aid Bill, which gave $35 million in aid to the British Royal Navy but this failed in the Senate.
On Jan. 21, a westbound passenger express train derailed near Sudbury on a bridge over the Spanish River. The train had seven cars with 100 passengers when it began lurching from side-to-side after rounding a curve that led up to the bridge. A second-class coach derailed from the front of the train and hit the structure of the bridge where it broke into two pieces and burst into flames. At least 43 people died, but the estimate has been put as high as 70. Poor track conditions and speeding, or braking, on a curve were blamed for the accident.
On Feb. 2, George Murdoch died. Born in 1850 in Scotland, he was a pioneer in Western Canada and a saddle maker, he moved to Calgary in 1883 just a few months before the CPR arrived. With his successful harness shop, he provided saddles for the First Nations and the North-West Mounted Police. His work with the Blackfoot led him to learn their language.
In Calgary, he was involved in several organizations and societies, as well as the fire brigade. On Dec. 4, 1884, he was elected as the first mayor of Calgary, and he was re-elected in 1886. He was later elected as a councillor for Calgary in 1889 and 1895.
On Feb. 17, 1910, the Chicoutimi Hockey Club played an exhibition game against the Montreal Canadiens. Even though the Canadiens were a far superior team, they were unable to score on Georges Vezina and lost the game.
Almost immediately, Vezina was offered a tryout with the Canadiens. Vezina had no desire to leave his life or his team. He refused the offer and stayed in Chicoutimi.
The Canadiens were not to be refused. They returned later in the year and convinced Vezina to come to Montreal with his brother Pierre. After tryouts, Pierre did not make the team, but Vezina easily did.
In truth, Pierre was never going to make the team. He was simply a ploy to get Vezina to try out so the team could offer him a contract.
The ploy worked and in December 1910, Vezina signed a salary of $800, which was about average for that time.
On Dec. 31, 1910, Vezina made his professional debut with the Canadiens in a game against the Ottawa Senators.
On Feb. 26, Adelaide Hoodless died in Toronto. Born in St. George, Canada West in 1858, she founded the Women’s Institute and was the second president of the Ontario Young Women’s Christian Association from 1890 to 1902. Between 1894 and 1898, she gave 60 speeches and was described as a lively and engaging speaker.
On March 4, an avalanche went down the Rogers Pass and killed 58 men working to clear a railroad line. Along with burying dozens of men, 400 metres of track was buried and a 91-ton locomotive and plow was hurdled 15 metres away and landed upside down. The wooden cars behind the locomotive were completely crushed, with only one workman not buried in the snow. The only survivor on the locomotive was Billy Lachance, who was knocked over by the wind of the avalanche but was uninjured. Among the 58 dead were 32 Japanese workers. It was not the first, nor would it be the last avalanche to hit the area.
On March 10, Chief Joe Capilano died in North Vancouver of tuberculosis. Born around 1854 in the Lower Mainland near Squamish, he spent his life fighting for his people when it came to land claims, and the recognition of Indigenous rights and lifestyle.
In 1906, he travelled to Ottawa, then London to meet with King Edward VII to speak on the subject of land claims in British Columbia. He also asked that the potlatch ban be lifted. He was unsuccessful on both accounts.
Many places in the Lower Mainland are now named for him including the Capilano River, Capilano Lake, Capilano Mountain and Capilano University. He also worked closely with poet Pauline Johnson to create Legends of Vancouver, a collection of Coast Salish stories.
On May 25, after Alberta Premier Alexander Rutherford became embroiled in the Alberta and Great Waterways Railway scandal over accusations his government favoured the Alberta and Great Waterways Railway, the premier resigned and was replaced the following day by Arthur Sifton. Sifton had served as the first Chief Justice of Alberta since 1907 when he was chosen to become the province’s second premier.
On June 26, Munroe Bourne was born in Victoria. As an Olympian at the 1928, 1932 and 1936 Olympics he competed in the swimming competitions and earned a bronze medal in the relay in 1928. At the British Empire Games in 1930, he won gold in the 100 yard freestyle and 4×200 yard freestyle. In 1932, he received a Rhodes Scholarship to study at Oxford. He then earned a medical degree from McGill. During the Second World War, he earned the rank of major. He spent the rest of his life working as a doctor and died on July 11, 1992 in Rothesay, New Brunswick.
On July 2, Lorne Carr was born in Stoughton, Saskatchewan. He began his professional hockey career with the Vancouver Lions of the Pacific Coast Hockey League in 1930. He then played for the Buffalo Bisons with the International Hockey League. In 1934, he signed with the New York Rangers. After one season with the Rangers, he played with the New York Americans for the next seven seasons. In 1941, he was traded to the Toronto Maple Leafs where he won his first Stanley Cup in 1942. He played for the Maple Leafs for another four seasons, earning a second Stanley Cup in 1945. In his NHL career, he had 426 points in 580 games. He died in Calgary on June 9, 2007.
On July 31, Dr. Hawley Crippen was arrested in Quebec City for the murder of his wife. His wife, Cora, had disappeared on Jan. 31, 1910 following a party in London, England. Dr. Crippen claimed that she returned to the United States. Police began to suspect Dr. Crippen of the murder but he told them he fabricated the story of her leaving because she had left him for one of her lovers. Dr. Crippen was let go and boarded SS Montrose for Canada the following day.
Captain Henry Kendall recognized Dr. Crippen and sent a wireless telegram to the British authorities.
When police searched where the couple were staying, they found her torso under the brick floor in the basement. They were identified as Cora’s but her head and limbs were never found. While Montrose was travelling across the Atlantic, Chief Inspector Walter Dew boarded a faster ship and arrived in Quebec before Dr. Crippen. When Crippen’s ship arrived at Quebec City, Dew went on board and said “Good morning, Dr. Crippen. Do you know me? I’m Chief Inspector Dew from Scotland Yard.”
Dr. Crippen responded, “Thank God it’s over. The suspense has been too great. I couldn’t stand it any longer.”
Crippen was put in handcuffs and returned to the United Kingdom. He was the first criminal captured with the aid of wireless telegraph. On Nov. 23, 1910, he was put to death by hanging at Pentonville Prison in London.
On Aug. 18, Robert Winters was born in Lunenburg, Nova Scotia. He went on to serve in Parliament from 1945 to 1957 and 1965 to 1968. He held several important cabinet posts including Minister of Trade and Commerce and Minister of Public Works. He ran to succeed Lester B. Pearson in the 1968 Leadership Convention but finished second to Pierre Trudeau. He died three years later in 1969 from a heart attack while playing tennis in California.
On Aug. 26, Jessie Gray was born in Augusta, Georgia. When she was two, her family moved to Toronto where she grew up and remained for the rest of her life. After grade school, she studied medicine and earned her medical degree in 1934. The faculty of Medicine awarded her a gold medal for her high academic standing. She was the first woman to receive this medal.
She became the first female general surgeon registered in Canada and was the first woman accepted into the Gallie Course in surgery. In 1939, she became the first Canadian woman to graduate with a Master of Surgery.
In 1940, she became the first female resident surgeon at the Toronto General Hospital and rose to become Chief of Surgery in 1946. During this time, she became one of the top cancer surgeons in North America. She was also instrumental in the creation of the first cancer detection clinic in Canada.
In 1964, she retired from the Women’s College Hospital and one year later retired from the University of Toronto. She died on Oct. 16, 1978 at the age of 68.
On Oct. 8, Ray Lewis was born in Hamilton. Called Rapid Ray, he was one of Canada’s top track and field athletes. In high school, he won 17 national high school championships, including four in one day. After high school, he took a job for the Canadian Pacific Railway as a porter, a job that he held for over two decades. In 1932, he competed at the Los Angeles Olympics and won a bronze medal in the 4×400 metre relay. Two years later, he won a silver medal at the British Empire Games in London in the 4×400 yards.
In 2001, he received the Order of Canada, and in 2002 a biography about his life was written. He died on Nov. 15, 2003. A school in Hamilton is named for him.
On Oct. 21, Pauline Mills McGibbon was born in Sarnia, Ontario.
Studying at the University of Toronto, she began volunteering with various organizations, including the Daughters of the Empire, of which she became president in 1963, serving until 1965. A major supporter of the arts, she also served as the president of the Dominion Drama Festival in 1948 and was the first woman to lead both the Canadian Conference of the Arts and the National Arts Centre.
She was also the first woman to serve as president of the University of Toronto Alumni Association from 1952 to 1953.
She served as an honorary colonel with the 25th Toronto Service Battalion, the Director of Massey Hall and Roy Thomson Hall and earned the Order of Canada in 1967 for her work with the arts and volunteer organizations.
In 1988, she was awarded the Order of Ontario.
Her biggest role would come on Jan. 17, 1974 when she became the first female Lt. Governor in Canadian history, and second in the British Commonwealth. She served in the post until Sept. 15, 1980. Her main focus during her time as Lt. Governor was on the arts in the province. She donated all but $200 of her salary.
She passed away on Dec. 14, 2001 in Toronto.
On Oct. 27, Jack Carson was born in Carman, Manitoba. While he started as a drama actor, he eventually moved to vaudeville and became a duo act with his college friend Dave Willock. The two became one of the most successful vaudeville acts in North America.
He eventually moved into Radio, where he hosted The New Jack Carson Show beginning in 1943 and ran for four years, making him one of the biggest stars in North America. He also started to act in films beginning in 1938. His most acclaimed film was Mildred Pierce in 1945, where he played Wally Fay opposite Joan Crawford. During the dawn of the age of television, he starred on The Jack Carson Show from 1954 to 1955. He appeared in several shows throughout the 1950s and 1960s, including Bonanza, Alfred Hitchcock Presents and The Twilight Zone.
In 1960, he was given two stars on the Hollywood Walk of Fame for his contributions to television and radio.
On Aug. 26, 1962, while performing in the play Critic’s Choice, he collapsed on stage. He was diagnosed with a stomach disorder, but two months later it was deemed to be stomach cancer. He died on Jan. 2, 1963 in Encino, California at the age of 52.
On Nov. 14, Michael Starr was born in Copper Cliff, Ontario. After serving on Oshawa City Council from 1944 to 1949, and as mayor of Oshawa from 1949 to 1952, he was elected to the House of Commons in 1952 as a Progressive Conservative. He became the first Canadian cabinet minister of Ukrainian descent in the John Diefenbaker government. In 1967, he stood as a candidate to succeed Diefenbaker but lost on the second ballot. For a brief two months, he was the Leader of the Opposition until Robert Stanfield took over. In 1968, he lost his seat to the young Ed Broadbent of the NDP. From 1968 to 1972, he was a citizen court judge in Toronto, and from 1973 to 1980, he was the chairman of the Workers’ Compensation Board of Ontario.
Starr died on March 16, 2000.
On Dec. 10, during a night shift with 42 workers in a coal mine in Bellevue, an explosion erupted and trapped the men underground. It took a rescue team from Hosmer, British Columbia six hours to get to the mine site. The rescuers soon found a room in the mine with 20 dead miners. One rescuer also died while under ground. Only 12 men survived the disaster. An inquest was held, but the exact cause of the explosion was never determined.
Some items had no dates.
In Canada, the first known outbreak of polio occurred in 1910 when a little girl was taken to a Hamilton hospital with the belief, she had rabies. The fact it was polio was only discovered after she had sadly passed away.
In 1910, the Chinese Immigration 9 Forms became the first mass use of identification photography in Canada, predating driver licences and passport photos by years.
