By Phil Egan for the Sarnia Journal My recent research into Sarnia’s old inns and hotels revealed plans for a great hotel in Sarnia that never got off the ground. It was 1929 – a year that would dash plans all across North America as the stock market collapsed that [...]
By Phil Egan in the book, "Keeping the Peace" On the third day of February, 1920, The Observer announced, “Famous Police of Northwest to have Men Here.” The Northwest Mounted Police, soon to be known as the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, were about to station a unit in Sarnia. Their [...]
By Phil Egan for the Sarnia Journal A dreadful image hangs today in the National Gallery of Canada. The painting, by Joseph Lagare, depicts the terrified citizens of Quebec City scurrying about the town’s market square in 1832. Thick, black smoke from burning smudge pots fills an apocalyptic sky. In [...]
By Phil Egan for the Sarnia Journal Close friends called him “Bungo.” More formally, he was known as The Right Honourable Lord Julian Byng of Vimy, Governor- General of the Dominion of Canada. To many veterans of the Great War in 1922, he was simply the hero of the Battle [...]
By Phil Egan for First Monday Magazine This summer, I had to relive my sister’s death all over again. I read both the Sarnia Observer, and the Sarnia Gazette accounts of the fire that took her life in the wee hours of that cold January morning. I stopped my research [...]
By Phil Egan for the Sarnia Journal It looked so much like the original that it caused a lot of smart people to utter some perfectly silly comments. “How did they get it in here so fast?” was a common theme from people who had just walked past the original [...]
By Phil Egan for the Sarnia Journal On a ridge in Northern France stands what may well be the most striking and admired memorial to war ever constructed. Yet there are no figures of soldiers; nor will you find images of cannon or stacks of cannon balls or other weaponry. [...]
By Phil Egan for the Sarnia Journal When I was only 10 years old, back in 1957, my father bought me my first camera. It was small, and ridiculously easy to operate. You loaded in film, pointed the camera and clicked the shutter button. It was called a Brownie. For [...]
By Phil Egan for the Sarnia Journal Is it possible to love an opera that you’ve never heard? If the answer is yes, and I think it is, then you’ll have some idea of how I feel about the opera which premiered in Toronto on June 26 and 27 at [...]
By Phil Egan for the Sarnia Journal To the strains of a highland piper on a glorious autumn afternoon, Tom Belton led the procession down Lochiel Street to the waterfront. There were more than 60 of them in all. Family, friends, and former employees of Belton Lumber – they were [...]