Royal Canadian Legion 142 Delburne Ardley

04/22/2026

04/16/2026

Canada’s history is not as uniformly peaceful as we like to imagine.

A lot of what became Canada was shaped by people crossing the border with rifles, war plans, and a confident belief this place would fold.

The 1775 to 1776 invasion came out of the American Revolution, when Continental forces hoped Quebec would become the “14th Colony,” win French Canadian support, and weaken Britain from the north.

That gamble failed at Quebec City, where British defenders and local militia held through the winter and disease wrecked the invading army.

The War of 1812 was different.

Washington was trying to pressure Britain during the Napoleonic wars, and many American leaders assumed Upper Canada would be easy to seize, which is how battles like Queenston Heights became so important.

That fight was held together by British regulars, Canadian militia, and Indigenous allies, which is a pattern Canadians sometimes remember a little too selectively.

The 1838 Patriot War raids grew out of the failed rebellions in Upper and Lower Canada.

Exiles and sympathizers based in the United States still hoped to overthrow British rule, and the Battle of the Windmill became one of the clearest examples of that cross-border revolutionary spillover.

Then came the Fenian raids from 1866 to 1871, launched by Irish American nationalists who wanted to strike Britain by attacking its North American colonies and using Canadian territory as leverage for Irish independence.

Those raids were limited militarily, but politically they mattered a lot because they helped convince many colonists that British North America needed tighter union and better defence, which fed directly into Confederation.

The Battle of the St. Lawrence had a completely different background again.

This was not a land invasion but a wartime pe*******on of Canadian inland waters during the Second World War, as German U-boats pushed into the Gulf and river system to disrupt shipping and bring the Battle of the Atlantic right to Canada’s doorstep.

So the deeper story is not just that Canada was invaded five times.

It is that each attack came from a different political world: revolution, imperial war, exile radicalism, Irish nationalism, and total war.

That is what makes Canadian history more interesting than the old stereotype suggests.

We were not built only by compromise.

We were also built by people holding the line when compromise had already failed.



(Source: The Canadian Encyclopedia, Parks Canada, Veterans Affairs Canada)

04/16/2026

Guinness ... nectar of the gods.

In 1914, the Guinness Brewery at St. James’s Gate in Dublin was the largest brewery in the world. It employed around five thousand people, and by the standards of the era it was an unusually generous employer.

Since the turn of the century, Guinness had been running welfare schemes covering medical care, pensions, and housing for its workforce, at a cost that by 1907 amounted to one-fifth of the entire annual wages bill.

The brewery had built a reputation, even among competitors, as a place where working-class men could build stable lives.

When war broke out in August 1914, the company encouraged employees to enlist. What followed was more than passive encouragement. Guinness guaranteed that every man who left to serve would have his job waiting when he returned.

It paid half of each soldier’s ordinary wages directly to his family every week he remained in service, so that wives and children at home were not left without income while their husbands and fathers were in the trenches.

Additional war bonuses were paid on top of that. A dedicated War Gifts Committee was formed inside the brewery specifically to organize and dispatch parcels to men on active service.
Over 800 employees served, drawn from every level of the company, from senior management to laborers in the maltings and cooperage.

They served mainly with the Royal Dublin Fusiliers, the Royal Irish Fusiliers, the Irish Guards, and the Royal Army Medical Corps, fighting across France, the Middle East, and beyond. Forty-seven received gallantry awards including the Military Cross, the Distinguished Conduct Medal, and the Croix de Guerre.

Two of the company’s own directors served at the front.
Of the 800 men who left, 103 did not come back.

03/28/2026

Great idea!

Across the UK, repair cafés are bringing retirees and young people together to fix broken items for free—saving things from landfill and passing on skills that might otherwise be lost.

03/22/2026

NOTICE of GENERAL MEETING

The next Legion Monthly General Meeting for Branch 142 - Delburne-Ardley will be held from 7:00 pm to 8:30 pm on Wednesday 25 March 2026, at the Legion Hall on 22nd Avenue. The neeting is open to all members of our Branch. All members are encouraged to attend.

03/06/2026

Most nineteen-year-olds weren't fixing carburetors in a war zone. But Princess Elizabeth wasn't most people. In 1945, she made a choice that broke 1,000 years of royal tradition.

03/06/2026

This shirt for you, Let wear it with your pride! 🎁

02/26/2026

More closely related to shrimp and lobsters than insects, pillbugs feed on decaying matter and store heavy metals as inert mineral deposits in their bodies.

Scientists use them to gauge soil pollution. Quiet cleaners of the ground beneath you.

02/21/2026

The gold medal Olympic hockey game, Canada vs USA, will be held at 06:00 early on Sunday morning. Is there any interest in us opening the Legion pub for the game. Yes, it's early, but like Jimmy Buffet said "it's five o'clock somewhere".

If you are interested in attending, comment on this post. I'll post a go or no go on the page by Saturday evening.