On Jan. 1, British Columbia switched from driving on the left side of the road to the right side, one of the last places in Canada to do so. Despite the changeover, there were less accidents on Sunday, Jan. 1 than any previous Sunday in 1921.
On Feb. 9, Joe Fortes died. In 1885, he came to British Columbia and made his home in English Bay. He lived in a tent on the beach and eventually started to run Vancouver’s earliest shoeshine stand out of the Sunnyside Hotel. He was a common sight on the beach where he taught thousands of children how to swim.
On Jan. 11, 14-year-old Leonard Thompson became the first person to receive an insulin injection to treat diabetes. At first it caused an allergic reaction but the process was quickly refined and his second dose was delivered 12 days later successfully. His condition immediately started to improve, which proved that insulin could help people manage diabetes. For their work, Frederick Banting and James Macleod received the Nobel Prize in 1923. As for Thompson, he lived for another 13 years before he died of pneumonia.
On Jan. 21, Lincoln Alexander was born in Toronto. In school, he dealt with racism from other students, & often defended himself in fights.
He later joined the RCAF as a wireless operator during the Second World War. While stationed in Vancouver, he was refused service at a bar because of his race. He reported it to a superior officer who did nothing. After the war, he attended McMaster University but even with his degree & the support of the mayor of Hamilton, no one would hire him.
Lincoln then got a law degree but only one firm offered him a job. He remained with the firm for several years before moving on to politics.
In 1968, he was elected to Parliament, becoming Canada’s 1st Black Canadian MP. He served with the PCs. In his Parliamentary career from 1968-1980, he also became the first Black Canadian cabinet minister when he was the Minister of Labour from 1979 to 1980.
In 1985, he was appointed as the Lt. Governor of Ontario, becoming the 1st Black Canadian to hold a vice-regal post.
As Lt. Governor, serving until 1991, he visited 672 communities, held 675 receptions, received 75,000 guests, attended 4,000 engagements & visited 230 schools. He then served as chancellor of the University of Guelph from 1991-2007 for a record five terms. When he died, he was given a state funeral, which was attended by 1,500 people.
The Province of Ontario declared Jan. 21 to be Lincoln Alexander Day in Ontario. In 2018, a stamp was issued in his honour. To date, five schools are named for him.
On Jan. 21, Rhona and Rhoda Wurtele were born in St. Lambert, Quebec. They were identical twins and became pioneers in women’s skiing. They both competed at the 1948 Winter Olympics where they made up the entire Women’s Alpine Team for Canada. They were both inducted into the US National Ski Hall of Fame, the Canadian Ski Hall of Fame and Canada’s Sports Hall of Fame. Rhona died in 2020 at the age of 97. As of this recording, Rhoda is still alive and is 103.
On Feb. 25, Molly Reilly was born in Lindsay, Ontario. After she graduated high school, Molly started to take flying lessons from Violet Milstead. With the outbreak of the Second World War, she applied to join the RCAF to complete her pilot certification but was rejected because she was a woman.
In 1941, she joined the RCAF as a photographer in the newly-created Women’s Division. She remained with the RCAF as a non-commissioned officer until 1946. After finally earning her private pilot’s license after the war, she also gained her commercial flight licence.
In 1957, she competed in the Webster Trophy aviation race, finishing only three-tenths of a point behind the first place winner. Upon completing her instructor’s certification, Molly became a flight instructor in Toronto. She continued to upgrade her skills and ratings as a pilot at the same time.
In 1958, she was hired as the chief flying instructor and charter pilot for Canadian Aircraft Renters. Three years later, she was promoted to full-time charter pilot with Southern Provincial Airlines.
This made her the first Canadian female pilot to reach the rank of captain. In her work with Southern Provincial Airlines, she also became the first woman to fly professionally to the Arctic.
For years, she flew extensively into the Arctic, dealing with poor visibility, few navigational aids and extreme weather. In 1965, Molly was hired by Canadian Coachways as their chief pilot. This made her the first female corporate pilot in Canada. In 1974, she was inducted into the Canadian Aviation Hall of Fame. Molly died on Nov. 24, 1980.
In her aviation career, she logged over 10,000 hours as a pilot-in-command without a single accident.
On Feb. 25, Molly Lamb Bobak was born in Vancouver. She was a teacher, writer and painter who worked in oils and watercolours. During the Second World War, she was the only Canadian woman artist to be sent overseas to document Canada’s war effort as a war artist. After the war, she participated in exhibitions and had her work showcased at the National Gallery of Canada, the MacKenzie Art Gallery and the Royal Canadian Academy of Arts. She died in 2014.
On April 5, Charles Dunning became premier of Saskatchewan, taking over from William Melville Martin. He would remain as premier until February 1926. As leader of the party and province, he continued to work with farmers to satisfy their concerns and demands.
On April 26, Jeanne Sauve was born in Saskatchewan. When she was three, her family moved to Ottawa. There, her father often took her to see the bronze bust on Parliament Hill of Canada’s first female Member of Parliament Agnes Macphail. Little did he know that his own daughter would break ground in federal politics. Sauve started working as a journalist for CBC and Radio Canada as an adult. She then hosted her own radio programme Femina. From 1956 to 1963, she hosted Opinions. In 1972, she was elected to Parliament and served as a Minister of the Crown, becoming the first French-Canadian woman to hold that post.
In 1980, she was appointed as the first female Speaker of the House of Commons. She served until 1984 until she was appointed the first female Governor General of Canada. Her appointment was welcomed but over time many felt she had an anti-monarchist attitude and for doing what some believed was elevating the position above its traditional place. She served as Governor General until 1990 and died on Jan. 26, 1993.
On May 3, Prince Edward Island granted the right to vote to all women except Indigenous and Asian women. The island province was the last province in Atlantic Canada to give women the right to vote. Newfoundland gave women the right to vote in 1925 but was not part of Canada at the time. The next place in Canada to give women the right to vote would be Quebec in 1940.
On May 26, Lorraine Monk was born in Montreal. She became an executive producer with the National Film Board, leading the production of several photography projects from the 1960s onwards. She established the Canadian Museum of Photography, which spawned several satellite museums around the country. The 160,000 photographs she commissioned helped detail Canada from the 1960s to 1980s. Many of these photographs are now housed at the National Gallery of Canada. In 1973, she was awarded the Order of Canada. She died in 2020.
On June 11, Nanook of the North was released by Robert J. Flaherty. Considered the first documentary, although this isn’t the case, it followed an Inuk man named Nanook and his family in the Canadian arctic. Flaherty also served as cinematographer, editor, producer and writer. Several scenes were staged in the documentary but its success proved that documentaries were financially viable and inspired many documentaries to come. In 1989, it was one of the first 25 films to be selected by the Library of Congress for preservation in the United States National Film Registry.
On July 23, Jenny Pike was born in Winnipeg. She learned to develop film as a child and in 1943 became a photographer with the Women’s Royal Canadian Naval Service. In 1944, she was the only female photographer to develop photos from the D-Day landings. After the war she married and moved to Victoria where she and her husband Donovan had two children. She was a member of the Winnipeg Royal Canadian Legion and in 1969 started working for the Victoria City Police Identification Unit as a darkroom technician. She retired in 1983. Around that same time, she was part of the film crew on the film The Glitter Dome and was an extra in the movie.
On Aug. 2, Alexander Graham Bell died in Nova Scotia at the age of 75. An inventor, scientist and engineer, he patented the first practical telephone. He came up with the idea living in Ontario, and said that the idea was conceived in Canada but birthed in the United States. Bell also helped design Canada’s first aircraft, the Silver Dart, which flew in 1909. When Prime Minister William Lyon Mackenzie King heard of Bell’s death, he sent a telegram to Bell’s wife and stated,
“My colleagues in the Government join with me in expressing to you our sense of the world’s loss in the death of your distinguished husband. It will ever be a source of pride to our country that the great invention, with which his name is immortally associated, is a part of its history. On the behalf of the citizens of Canada, may I extend to you an expression of our combined gratitude and sympathy.”
At the conclusion of Bell’s funeral in Nova Scotia, every telephone in North America was silenced for one minute to honour him.
On Aug. 8, John Bracken became the premier of Manitoba. In 1922, the United Farmers of Manitoba were hoping to make progress after becoming a party in 1920.
The UFM was opposed to partisanship and the party also endorsed candidates with the Progressive Association. Fielding candidates in only two-thirds of ridings, the United Farmers won 28 out of 55 seats, suddenly becoming the ruling party in the province with a majority government. This created a problem since the party didn’t have a leader, and as a result, there was no premier for the province. Several Members of Parliament turned down the offer to lead the party and the province, so the party looked to the man who was making a name for himself in the province, John Bracken.
On July 21, Bracken received a phone call at midnight asking him if he wanted to become premier. The caller was W.R. Clubb, a stranger to Bracken, and an MLA in the Legislature now.
Bracken at first refused, as he had no interest in politics, but after talking with his wife he decided that he should at least consider it. The next day Bracken was in a church basement being interviewed by the new United Farmers caucus. Bracken had gone from being a relative nobody, to the premier of the province in one day.
He governed Manitoba for the next 21 years, longer than anyone else in the province’s history.
On Aug. 24, Rene Levesque was born in Campbelltown, New Brunswick. Raised in Quebec, he rose to prominence through his work with Radio Canada. He covered many national and international events for the news service, before he was elected to the Quebec Legislature in 1960 as a member of the Liberal Party.
He began to champion separation from Canada as a Liberal platform, which led to him splitting from the party and forming the Parti Quebecois. The party began to grow in popularity and received 25 per cent of the vote in the 1970 provincial election. In 1976, his party came to power for the first time and Levesque became Premier of Quebec. In 1980, he launched the first referendum for independence by Quebec, which was narrowly defeated.
As premier, he enacted the Charter of the French Language and pushed Quebec nationalism. He refused to endorse the 1982 constitutional amendment. His government also nationalized hydroelectricity through Hydro-Quebec, and made Quebec the first major jurisdiction in the western world to prohibit discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation. His government also improved social services in the province. He resigned as premier on Oct. 3, 1985, and died two years later.
On Sept. 1, Yvonne De Carlo was born in Vancouver. Born Margaret Yvonne Middleton, she became a major film star in the 1940s and 1950s, acting in several successful movies. She was the first film star to visit Israel and she reached the peak of her film career with her role as Moses’ wife in The Ten Commandments in 1956. Her most famous role may be Lily Munster on The Munsters, which aired on CBS from 1964 to 1966. She also acted in Broadway and earned two stars on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. She died on Jan. 8, 2007.
On Sept. 18, Prime Minister William Lyon Mackenzie King refused to support Britain in the Chanak Affair. This related to Turkish forces pinning down British forces at Chanak in Turkey. On this day, the British government sent a telegram to the Dominions asking them to contribute soldiers for the crisis. King decided that Canada would not send troops, which was a major change in Canada’s foreign policy. King was criticized by the Conservatives as being disloyal to Britain.
On Dec. 1, New Brunswick made the switch on its roads by requiring drivers to drive on the right side of the road, rather than the left. It was one of the last places in North America to do so. Newfoundland would continue to do so for two decades.
On Dec. 5, the land around Vimy Ridge in France was provided to Canada freely and for all-time to build a memorial to soldiers who died in the First World War. The land totalled 100 acres and the only condition was that Canada use erect a monument to commemorate the Canadian soldiers killed during the First World War and assume any maintenance of that plot of land. Construction on the memorial began in 1922. The memorial, designed by Walter Seymour Allward would become a lasting symbol of Canada’s war sacrifice. On July 26, 1936, it was unveiled by King Edward VIII in front of 50,000 people. It was re-dedicated by Queen Elizabeth II on April 9, 2007. It is one of only two National Historic Sites of Canada to be outside the country.
