#Caturday Reading "Some prisoners acquired cats and dogs through sales orchestrated by camp staff or through illicit trade with guards, while others simply "adopted" stray animals that wandered into the barbed wire enclosures." - @michaelsohagan.bsky.social niche-canada.org/2020/04/23/h...

Today marks the 84th anniversary of the sinking of the Bismarck, Germany's famed battleship. But this event has a little-known Canadian connection - the 109 survivors rescued by the British were all transferred to Canada as prisoners of war. #cdnhist #wwii #Bismarck

“Easter 1941” by Otto Ellmaurer, a civilian internee interned in Camp K near Kananaskis, Alberta. Hopefully everyone has better luck with the Easter Bunny than these two internees! More about Ellmaurer and his art at powsincanada.ca/2025/03/18/k... #cdnhist #wwii

The webmap I designed to run behind GeoPEI: PEI Historical Map Viewer and the Time Flies, Online Edition e-book (both free, by the way at upei.ca/timeflies) has just passed 20,000 views! Not the biggest number in DH project history, but pretty neat for a small place like PEI.

Following last week’s post, here are more cartoons by Otto Ellmaurer, a German Canadian civilian internee, from Camp K in Kananaskis, Alberta. This print likens internees to babies and their guards to nannies. Utter chaos appears to reign in the room.

In July 1940, Otto Ellmaurer arrived at Camp K, an internment camp in Kananaskis, Alberta. A civilian internee from Montreal, Ellmaurer began work on his “Kananaskis Record,” a series of cartoons depicting - and, often, mocking - life in Canada’s first internment camp of the Second World War.

In December 1944, the workshops at Camp 42 in Sherbrooke, Quebec were in full swing. But rather than making the usual crates and netting or repairing shoes, some of the internees were focused on building something new: children’s toys.

Almost 85 years ago to the day, a film crew visited Petawawa, Ontario to film scenes at Camp P, Canada's second internment camp of the Second World War. Here's what they saw. #wwii #pow #petawawa #canhist

The sources compiled by @alanmaceachern.bsky.social & @michaelsohagan.bsky.social for Canada’s Year Without a Summer continue to be used regularly by instructors and students. niche-canada.org/yearwithouta... #envhist #cdnhist #climhist

In December 1939, a film crew arrived at Petawawa to film Canada’s newest prisoners of war - German-Canadian civilian internees Thanks to LAC’s digitization, this short films gives a brief look into life inside one of Canada’s first #POW camps of the Second World War powsincanada.ca/2024/11/19/a...

Today on our site Mica Jorgenson is sharing her Living with Smoke: Lessons from the Chinchaga Fire comic that she created in collaboration with Petroglyph Studios niche-canada.org/2024/06/25/l... #envhist #firehistory #wildfires #firestories

On this day in 1941, guards posted at Prisoner of War Camp X (Angler) in Northwestern Ontario made a troubling discovery: the prisoners had staged what would become the largest escape from a Canadian internment camp during the Second World War.

Between 1939 and 1947, Canada established twenty-eight separate internment camps to hold German and Italian civilian internees, Enemy Merchant Seamen, and combatant prisoners. You can now find detailed descriptions and photo galleries of each camp on my site: powsincanada.ca/2024/03/07/a...