Skip to main content

A Visit from Massachusetts By Tammy Donahue Buziak, Archivist City of North Battleford Historic Archives


Mr.Gordon Watson from Massachusetts May 2018

On May 24, 2018 the City of North Battleford Historic Archives had a researcher visit from Walpole, Massachusetts.
Mr. Gordon Watson had been inquiring about the British Commonwealth Air Training Program approximately one year ago and decided that he would make special trip to North Battleford to visit the area. 
The history of the Training program began when North Battleford City Council offered the use of our airport as an Air Training Centre on September 11, 1939, one day after Canada declared war on Germany. The program received 700 Royal Air Force Trainees on July 22, 1941 and Mr. Watson’s dad may have been one of them.  Mr. Watson knew that his dad, Andrew Watson, had been stationed here in North Battleford from 1941 to 1944.  He remembers hearing stories and seeing pictures of his dad at that time.  Mr. Watson has donated to the City Archives, 104 historical photographs of the Training Centre at North Battleford in 1941.  We are so very excited to have received these amazing images.
Special thank you to Darren Roberts, Gordon Parkinson and Jeff Olson who arranged to meet with and tour some amazing areas of our City with Mr. Gordon Watson from Massachusetts.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Experiences of an archives intern at the University of Regina Archives and Special Collections

Name : Mason Hausermann Position : Arts Intern, U of R Archives & Special Collections Area of Study : Bachelor of Arts (Major: History, Minor: English) Career Aspirations : I would love to work in archives, libraries or museums once I’ve completed my degree. Why did you want to do an internship at the Archives?   To gain more insight into the heritage field. I was interested to learn more about what goes into the process of collection and digitization, as this is an often-overlooked component. Another aspect that drew me to this internship was the fact that I would be interacting with records and artifacts. I spent last summer as a student at the Doukhobor Heritage Village and really enjoyed this kind of hands-on work so I was glad to have a chance to do more of it. What was your project?  The digitization of Dr. George F. Ledingham's Ornithological study records. They form part of the Dr. George F. Ledingham Herbarium at the U of R’s Faculty of Science. The Herbarium i...
Post a Comment
Read more

New SCAA president 2024 - 2026

Hello, My name in Nicole Kruppi and I am the new SCAA President. Professionally I have worked most of my career (19 years) in the Records and Information Management field but like to think of myself as a long-suffering Archivist. My career has taken me across Canada. For the past seven years I lived in New Brunswick, Canada, working in the oil and gas industry at Irving Oil. Prior to that I lived in Calgary for nine years and worked for both the Public Service (Alberta Energy Regulator (AER) and Southern Alberta Institute of Technology (SAIT), as well as spending time at TC Energy. Closer to home, which in my mind has been Saskatoon, I worked for the Federation of Sovereign Indigenous Nations in the Specific Claims Archive & Library, and the Saskatchewan Archives Board as both a Records Manager and Project Archivist. Prior to deciding that I wanted to be an Archivist when I grew up, I worked at SaskTel Mobility. I hold a Masters in Archival Studies from the Univer...
Post a Comment
Read more

Archives and Reconciliation

Truth, reconciliation, and decolonization are at the forefront of many peoples' minds these days, and no less so in the archival community. Archives have a crucial role to play in the truth-seeking and acknowledgement that must occur before meaningful reconciliation can take place between Indigenous peoples and Canada's settler populations.  By preserving records of Indigenous history under colonial rule and walking the line between making those records accessible, but protecting the identities of those who suffered under the system, archivists are uniquely situated to provide supports for change. For this reason, the SCAA wishes to provide additional supports to our members as they work within this rapidly shifting landscape of Indigenous-Settler relationships. To this end, a workshop is being offered on March 12th, 2018 from 10:00 am to 4:00 pm at the First Nations University Multipurpose Room. The day-long workshop will consist of two parts, Morning Presen...
1 comment
Read more