Northern Voices of the Great War: Personal Perspectives and Narratives from Northern British Columbians
Keywords:
Oral History, Rural, British Columbia, Women, Indigenous, First World WarAbstract
The Northern Review 44 (2017): 355–370
The Great War “ruined everything,” according to northern British Columbia resident Vicky (Aldous) Sims in CBC interview from the mid 1960s. A powerful statement to be sure, but is it a true or accurate reflection? The following article features the voices and perspectives of northern British Columbians, to frame their lived experiences within the wider Canadian historical context of the First World War. As the perspectives and memories of these citizens suggest, the war touched every aspect of life even in the most isolated parts of the province; from the cost of basic food stuffs and supplies, to the demands of volunteerism and women’s domestic work and the participation of Indigenous peoples in the war effort, the very fabric of the society was altered. By reviewing the lived experiences and first personal narratives with the larger historical record it becomes clear that the Great War truly transformed the lives of every Canadian, even those in rural northern regions. This article is part of a special collection of papers originally presented at a conference on “The North and the First World War,” held May 2016 in Whitehorse, Yukon.
Downloads
Published
Issue
Section
License
Authors who publish with this journal agree to the following terms:
a. Authors retain copyright and grant the journal right of first publication, with the work simultaneously licensed under a Creative Commons License that allows others to share the work with an acknowledgement of the work's authorship and initial publication in this journal.
b. Authors are able to enter into separate, additional contractual arrangements for the non-exclusive distribution of the journal's published version of the work (e.g., post it to an institutional repository or publish it in a book), with an acknowledgement of its initial publication in this journal.
c. The journal has the right to authorize third-party publishers & aggregators to include the Article in databases or other services (EBSCO, Proquest).
d. The journal has the right to share the Article on the Internet, through social media and other means.
