(From a 2008 Letter to the Editor of the Sarnia Observer) I wonder how many Sarnians were aware that the Civic Day just passed was, in Sarnia, officially referred to as Alexander Mackenzie Day. In many parts of Ontario, it is Simcoe Day, but in this city, the city government [...]
Troy Shantz for The Sarnia Journal. (2017) If you hear the deafening roar of a Second World War bomber flying over Sarnia this summer, don’t be alarmed. The B17 is coming in peace, and everyone is invited to Chris Hadfield Airport to get a close-up look at the piece of [...]
Journal Staff (2017) Readers of a certain age will remember ‘The Golden Hind Room’ at Latner’s restaurant in the Northgate plaza, which was a happening place in the 1970s. Sam Latner’s licensed dining lounge and tavern boasted of “superb food served in the Sixteenth Century atmosphere of the Elizabethan Age,” [...]
Tom Slater One wet winter evening in 1944 Canadian Major Dennis Whitaker, a former CFL quarterback, found himself sitting in an English pub beside a U.S. Special Services lieutenant. The conversation turned to football and the American told Whitaker he’d been sent enough equipment from the States to field six [...]
Phil Egan While reviewing a mass of historical research documents recently a story caught my eye. “Describes Beachhead,” The Observer story was entitled. “Ensign John Blunt at Rotary Club” It described a Dec. 5, 1943 presentation delivered to the Sarnia Rotary Club at the Vendome Hotel by Ensign Blunt, a [...]
Phil Egan for The Sarnia Journal In 1936 any connection to the Dionne quintuplets was certain to attract a crowd. Ever since their miraculous births two years earlier, the Dionne quintuplets and their lives had generated countless news stories around the world. They were the first quintuplets known to have [...]
Troy Shantz for The Sarnia Journal (2017) Geraldine Robertson was 11-years-old when she placed on a train with her two younger sisters and sent to the Mohawk Institute residential school. It was July 1, 1947. Their father had just died and their mother was being treated in hospital for tuberculosis. [...]
Tom St. Amand for The Sarnia Journal (2017) In an online review of Canatara one tourist has noted that the park’s best-kept secret is a wooded area “locals have fondly nicknamed ‘Tarzan Land.’ Certainly, the 22-acre woodlot is no secret to Sarnians but how it came to be called Tarzanland [...]
Phil Egan for The Sarnia Journal (2017) It began with the promise of new jobs and ended with accusations of fraud and prison terms. The brief but tawdry history of the Pendergast Fence Company was front-page news in Sarnia in 1922 and 1923. The sad saga began with a happy [...]
Cathy Dobson for The Sarnia Journal (2017) One of the best examples of mural painting in Canadian art history is at the centre of a new Imperial Oil donation to Sarnia-Lambton’s public art collection. The donation includes six sketches and two large cartoons by prominent Canadian artist York Wilson. Their [...]
