Turn-of-the-century Canadians were getting up to stuff you aren’t going to read in history textbooks

National Post ^ | July 1, 2014 | Tristin Hopper

[Squawk 8888]

On about 15 metres of shelving at the British Library in London is a collection of Canadian images that curator Philip Hatfield calls “one of the most wonderful, idiosyncratic and personality-filled sets of photographs I’ve ever seen.”

Dating from about 100 years ago, the collection features scenes of spectacular destruction from the frontier, some of the last images of First Nations struggling to maintain a traditional way of life and hundreds of photos of tough, corn-fed Canadians doing battle with everything from moose to bears to Germans to winter.

Altogether, “you get a really strong sense of what it means to be Canadian,” said Mr. Hatfield, a Briton who wrote his PhD on the collection.

For Canada Day, the National Post presents these “greatest hits.” The featured image, by the way, depicts early 20th century members of the Sechelt Indian Band performing a Passion Play.

[Squawk 8888]

It is worth noting that there is almost no way to stop this thing.

Dominion Day Ping!

[Army Air Corps]

Ya gotta love it.

[Buckeye McFrog]

photos of tough, corn-fed Canadians doing battle with everything from moose to bears to Germans to winter.

Preparing themselves for the invention of professional hockey a few decades hence.

[teeman8r]

the brake is right there on the right of the picture... sheesh.

[Edward Teach]

Lacrosse is actually Canada’s true national sport. It’s like hockey, only violent.

[Squawk 8888]

I’m stealing that for my next tagline ;)

[UB355]

My wife had two great aunts who went up to Dawson, Yukon Territory Canada area during the early 1900s to seek employment and I suppose adventure. They brought back to Wisconsin a Caribou hide bound book containing 192 pictures from the era. It was published by John Zaccarelli. It is titled Scenes in the Land of the Mid-Night Sun

[Red Badger]

All I see is a tree.....................oh, wait.........................

[dhs12345]

You don’t see the anchor and chain that is under the legs of the lady in the side car. :)

[Safetgiver]

In this 1914 photo, a moustachioed man proudly displays his “sleigh motor cycle,” complete with a fur-wearing lady in the sidecar. It is worth noting that there is almost no way to stop this thing......Sure there was! Just wrap a chain around the old lady’s neck and yell “Anchors aweigh, lass.”

[Red Badger]

Lacrosse is actually Canada’s true national sport. It’s like hockey, only violent.

I went to a Lacrosse game and a hockey game broke out?.................

[Safetgiver]

Ya beat me to it. Damn.

[dhs12345]

Lol. Hey, great minds think alike!

[Gay State Conservative]

My father's older sister married a guy from Saint Albans,Vermont...which is about 15 miles from the Canadian border.My Dad said that when he was a kid he and his older brothers (he was the youngest of 8) would go up there and smuggle turkeys and booze (small quantities) across the border.He said that they had help from certain Canadians.So it looks like certain Canucks were up to more than just hockey back then.

[doorgunner69]

Well, she might float, he may be SOL......

[Squawk 8888]

If it was the 1920s, they probably traded it for booze.

[Squawk 8888]

Hooligans to #2- paging hooligans to #2...

[familyop]

"Dominion Day Ping!"

Someone here told me, "I thought it was called Canada Day." They seemed puzzled. What's up with calling it Dominion Day: what it was called from 1867 until 1982, when the last of British control was relinquished (1982)?

[Squawk 8888]

Legally it’s still Dominion Day; when the House of Commons voted to rename it to Canada Day they didn’t have a quorum present. That’s why us old patriots still call it Dominion Day. It was not just the birth of a nation, it was the creation of an entirely new form of constitutional order that was later adopted by Australia, New Zealand, the Irish Free State, South Africa and Bermuda. After France was knocked out of WWII, Churchill often spoke of the Dominions coming to Britain’s aid.