Post a Comment On: Fawcett Avenue Conscripts

On my way back to Regina, yesterday, I made a stop in Shilo, near Brandon, to visit the Royal Canadian Artillery Museum. It's a very decent museum with 4 sections:
1. The outdoor collection, with British guns, captured WW2 German guns and some Soviet WW2 and Cold War weapons as well. There are no explanations outside, so you have to use your own knowledge. But I discovered that the German equipped their guns with a clever mechanism to lower the silhouette.
2. The main collection, presenting the chronological evolution of guns with the Canadian Armed Forces. Each gun comes with at least one dummy server dressed with the uniform of the era. It's a good visual reference for painting. I must praise the museum for having all the explanations in both French and English, and not bad translations at all, like I've seen too many times. And you can touch everything. I felt so proud (or alarmed) as a father to see how my 2 year old daughter could handle the shell of a 25 pounder.
3. The military history of Canada, composed mostly of posters with two or three items. Time can be spent more fruitfully in the other sections.
4. The military history of Manitoba. A surprising exhibit with lots of interesting stories. And in the corner, there was something that made me skip a heartbeat: a diorama of the Battle of the Hudson Bay! Apparently, this was the greatest naval battle of Manitoba. The ships were about 1/200, displayed in a very unrealistic "epic" formation, but there they were: The Hampshire, the Hudson's Bay, the Derring and the Pélican. I cursed myself for the rest of the trip for not bringing the camera. I'll have to go back next year. Since I did not take any pictures, I stole this photo of the 1992 replica of the Pélican from Wikipedia to add a visual dimension to my entry.

[Image] And thanks to the folks in Winnipeg for sharing a few games with me. It was nice meeting you.