Remembering

Northwest Territories Archives — Peter J. Usher Fonds

Peter Usher February 16, 2025

The sun on the horizon near the polar circle. Snow is visible in the foreground.

The Canadian North was the focus of my working life for fifty years. In 1962 I was hired by the Department of Northern Affairs as a field assistant on a resource survey on the Western Arctic coast, and for several summers afterwards continued as assistant and then director. I also conducted my field research in…
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Remembering

On This Day — 30 March 1942

Peter Usher March 30, 2024

Photo of a memorial to sunken sailors of the Halifax, located near Shetland

Eighty-two years ago today, on 30 March 1942, Britain launched a desperate attempt. to destroy Nazi Germany’s largest battleship, the Tirpitz. The Allies’ fortunes were at a low ebb at that point in the war, and the Tirpitz, anchored near Trondheim, Norway, posed an immediate threat to Murmansk-bound convoys carrying aid to Soviet Russia. The…
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Remembering

Canadian History, history, Jewish History

On This Day — 21 March 1974

Peter Usher March 21, 2024

FIFTY YEARS AGO ON THIS DAY – 21 March 2024 Fifty years ago today the Government of Canada established the Mackenzie Valley Pipeline Inquiry. Its purpose was to hold hearings and report on the social, environmental and economic impact of the proposed Mackenzie Valley Gas Pipeline, and to recommend terms and conditions that should govern…
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Remembering

Canadian History, history, On This Day, personal reflection

Missing Indigenous Children

Peter Usher June 2, 2021

When I lived in a small community in the Western Arctic in the 1960s, I heard speculation, in hushed tones, of children buried in the mission school yard in Aklavik. I did not discount what I was being told, but as a young man from a relatively privileged and untroubled background, I was mystified about…
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Remembering

Remembrance Sunday in England, 10 November 2019

Peter Usher November 11, 2019

Went to the service in Canterbury Cathedral this morning, as we do each year. The impact of this astonishing space, and what goes on in it between 11 and 12 on Remembrance Sunday, does not diminish on me over time. “A British Subject I was born,” with all the good and the not so good…
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Remembering

This website is mostly about the experiences of Canadian airmen in the Second World War. Why? Because several of my own family served in the RCAF then, and some did not return. In later life I began to wonder about those men I never knew. Why did they go, what was their experience, what did they think about it? When I started asking questions, I started getting answers. Some from people who knew and remembered. Some from the discovery of letters and diaries that I had no idea existed. Some from reading and research to learn more about the war they fought in.

My first book, Joey Jacobson’s War, about the short but full life of my mother’s favourite cousin, was published in January 2018. Now I am working on more books about Canadian airmen in the Second World War. This website will keep you up to date on my progress. It also tells you what my books are about, how to get them, when and where I will be speaking about them, and how to contact me.

I also write blogs from time to time, mostly about my books and their themes. When the spirit moves me, I may also write about things I have done, seen, and thought about — from my early years in the Northwest Territories to what I see around me now in the forests, fields, and waters of the Canadian Shield here in Lanark County, Ontario.

Follow my journey here.