From the big scrapbook of time, here’s a look at Canada in 1938.
Hupmobile
sales will increase considerably from 14 in 1937 to 78 sales in eastern Canada
during the 1938 calendar year. The estimate for sales in all nine provinces will be
fixed at 98 sales by Might Directories Limited.
January 1: The new price for the Toronto Star is five cents.
January 10: It is the birth date of Frank Mahavlich in
Timmons, Ontario. He will play hockey for the NHL and be on six Stanley Cup winning teams. The Big M will be appointed to the
Senate in 1998.
January 11: The first airplane
lands at the brand new airport in Gander, Newfoundland. The honour goes to a
Fox Moth VO-ADE belonging to Imperial Airways, piloted by Captian Douglas Cowan
Fraser.
January 13: It the birth date of William B. Davis. He will
grow up to be an acclaimed actor best known for playing the mysterious smoking
man in the popular X-Files television drama.
January 27: The
Honeymoon Bridge over Niagara Falls collapses under the weight of an ice jam.
The disaster was expected and thousands watch as the 372-metre roadway is
destroyed.
February 23:
There is trouble on the usually peaceful Fraser River in British Columbia as Japanese-Canadian
fishermen are accused of assaulting white fishermen, cutting their nets and
wrecking their boats.
March 8: Hans
Fogh is born in Copenhagen, Denmark. He will immigrate to Canada when he is 29.
As one of the most successful sailors in history, the superb yachtsman will bring home a bronze medal from the 1984 Summer Olympics.
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March 16:
British Columbia Premier Duff Pattullo urges a ban be placed on Oriental
immigration into this country and that as many Asians as possible be expelled
and sent home. Since 1928 only 150 Japanese may come to Canada in a calendar
year but some folks on the west coast think that is far too many.
March 19: It is
an unforgettable moment in hockey as the Toronto Maple Leafs score eight goals
in just under five minutes in the third period of a game against the New York
Rangers.
March 31: The
CBC and Radio-Canada announces that the public broadcaster's programmes now reach 76 percent of homes from Sydney to
Victoria. That is up from the 49 percent reported in 1936.
April 12: The Toronto Maple Leafs
lose to Chicago in the fourth game of the playoffs. The Blackhawks go home
triumphantly with the Stanley Cup.
April 13: The nation’s most
famous conservationist, Grey Owl, is dead. He was in charge of the beaver
conservation programme in two national parks and the author of four books.
April 22: It is revealed that
Grey Owl is not native at all, that he is Archibald Stansfeld Belaney, a Briton
who came to Canada and masqueraded as an Indian.
May 13: Lucille Starr is born in
St. Boniface, Manitoba. She will become one of the public’s most loved country
singers and appear on such hit shows as National
Barn Dance on WLS in Chicago. In 1964 she will be the first Canadian female
artist to sell a million records with her smash hit, The French Song/Quand le Soleil.
May 24: It’s a boy for Stanley
and Lorna Jean Chong of Edmonton. Thomas will grow up to sing and write hits
for Motown before heading to Hollywood and fame as Chong in the hippy-dippy
Cheech and Chong movies.
May 25: Anastasia Stratakis is
born in Toronto. She will grow up to become an opera singer—change her name to
Teresa Stratas. Her career will span nearly four decades at the Metropolitan
Opera in New York City where the lyric soprano will make 385 appearances,
playing 41 different roles. She will spend time in India working with Mother
Theresa. The Order of Canada recipient will win both a Grammy and a Tony for
her unforgettable performances.
May 27: Ottawa nationalizes the
Bank of Canada. Founded three years ago as a private institution, the bank will
now be a Crown corporation with a governor appointed by Cabinet decision.
May 30: The decade-long Great
Toronto Stork Derby is over. Charles Vance Millar left his estate to the woman
who delivered the most children within ten years after his death. In the Dirty
Thirties this prize was a dream-come-true. Four women each registered nine live
births and the court ruled today the four must share the jackpot, estimated at
$750,000. The true-life tale will be made into a movie, The Stork Derby, in 2002.
June 1: Superman appears for the
first time as an Action Comic available at stores for 10 cents. The Man of
Steel is the brainchild of Toronto artist Joe Shuster and his American friend Jerry
Siegel. Collectors can expect to pay in the neighbourhood of $100,000 for that
first issue should they ever find one.
June 1: Federal Defense Minister Mackenzie urges the
Canadian Manufacturers’ Association to start producing war materiel. He notes
the Dominion’s arsenal is woefully in need of replenishing.
June 18: The Vancouver Sun reports the new Ford factory in Burnaby, BC has
an air-conditioned lunchroom for workers. The plant will be closed in 1946 and
sold in 1960. In 2006 the site will be home to the Metro Town Shopping Centre.
June 19: RCMP and Vancouver city police use tear gas
to remove 1,200 angry unemployed men from the Main Post Office and the Art
Gallery. They have been part of a
sit-down strike since May 20th. Once routed, the men march down
Hastings Street and break plate glass windows along the way. Damage is estimated
at $35,000. The incident will be
remembered as ‘Bloody Sunday.’
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| Heinz Canada Limited will close its factory doors in 2014. |
June 25: Workers at the Heinz
factory in Leamington, Ontario have finished installing new equipment. The
largest tomato processing plant in the British Empire is now ready to take on
the biggest tomato crop on record. Heinz employs 3,000 workers and ships 50,000
tonnes of canned food throughout the Empire.
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| Women who qualify as stewardesses must be Registered Nurses, be no taller than 157 centimetres and pay for their own uniforms. Miss Garner is seen here in a uniform she designed for Trans-Canada Airlines. |
On July 1, 1938, TCA’s hires the company's first flight attendant:
Lucile Garner Grant, a trained nurse. Her duties include designing a
uniform, monitoring weather patterns, handling radio communications, and
devising food services. Always adventurous and a bit of a daredevil, she will die in 2013 at the age of 102.
July 4: Police are busy in
Toronto today as there 10,000 supporters of the League for Decency and Democracy flock to an anti-fascist rally at Maple Leaf Gardens while 2,500 fascists from the Unity Party meet in Massey Hall. Meanwhile, another 850 protesters gather to attack the anti-fascists who promote hatred against Jews.
July 29: In Toronto, it’s a boy for CBC broadcaster
Charles Jennings and wife Elizabeth. Peter Stewart Jennings will be a
broadcaster like his famous dad, cutting his teeth at the CBC as host of a
kids’ show when he is nine. Peter will never graduate from high school or
university but he will be reporter and serve as the evening newsreader at ABC
World News Tonight in the United States for more than 20 years. He will die of
cancer in 2005.
July 30: John de Chastelain is
born in Bucharest, Romania. His parents are spies for Britain. He will grow up
to become a soldier and rise to be a general, appointed twice as Chief of the Defense
Staff and our Ambassador to the United States.
August 18: American President
Franklin Roosevelt receives an honourary degree from Queen’s University in Kingston,
Ontario. He pledges that the United States will not stand idly by “if
domination of Canada is threatened by any other empire.”
August 18: The Ivy Lea Bridge is
open to the public. Only 15 metres in length, it is the smallest international
span ever built. It connects Collins Landing, New York to Gananoque, Ontario in
the picturesque Thousand Islands.
August 22: The RCMP destroy a
good tonne of marijuana in the Tecumseh District of Ontario.
August 25: Colin Thatcher is born
in Toronto. He will grow up to be a cabinet minister in the Saskatchewan
provincial government. He will stand the entire nation on its collective ear
when he bludgeons his ex-wife to death in 1983. Sentenced to life for her
murder, Thatcher will be released from Her Majesty’s prisons in 2009.
August 28: It is a boy for Member
of Parliament Paul and Eleanor Martin of Windsor, Ontario. Paul Edgar Phillipe
will grow up to lead the Grits and be this country’s twenty-first Prime
Minister. After losing the 2006 federal election, he will step down as Leader
of Her Majesty’s Loyal Opposition.
September 30: Fears that Europe
will go to war are quieted as France and Britain agree that Germany has a right
to occupy the Sudentenland district of Czechoslovakia. PM Mackenzie King cables
London to approve of the international pact with the Nazis.
October 26: The 259-tonne Bluenose wins the International
Fisherman’s Trophy, just three minutes ahead of the Gertrude L. Thebaud. It is the 21st year that the
schooner from Nova Scotia has raced for the title and won. To honour the mighty
vessel, the Royal Mint issued the
Bluenose dime last year.
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| Codfish are important to our national economy. |
November 17: Prime Minister
Mackenzie King inks a new trade deal with Britain, Canada and the USA. Our fish catch
will cost less when sold in the States but American wheat will be more
competitive here at home.
November 17: Gordon Lightfoot is
born in Orillia, Ontario. He will learn to play the guitar and sing. He will
record songs that will become classics including, Alberta Bound, If You Could
Read My Mind, Sundown and The Wreck of the Edmond Fitzgerald. Gordon will rack
up 15 Juno Awards and become a Companion in the Order of Canada in 2003.
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| Ste-Agathe-des-Monts is a small village in the Laurentians approximately two hours from Montreal. |
November 19: The Canadian Corps
Association sends a letter to the Prime Minister urging that Jews not be permitted
to come to Canada despite turmoil in Europe. Laws must “ensure that our future
citizens will be predominately British, the remainder to be those whose racial
origins permit rapid and complete assimilation.”
November 19: German newspapers
accuse the Government of Canada of treating Indians far worse than the Third Reich treats
Jews.
November 26: Richard Caruthers Little is born in Ottawa. "The Man of a Thousand Voices" will grow up to be a Hollywood star, famous for his celebrity
impersonations. He will appear regularly in Las Vegas in 2006.
December 10: The Toronto
Argonauts whip the Winnipeg Blue Bombers 30 to 7 and claim Lord Grey’s Cup for
their own.
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| Buckley's. Since 1919. It tastes awful. And it works. |
December 14: The Great Depression
lingers on. The Chatham (Ontario) Times advises mothers that a bottle of cough
syrup can be stretched into three by mixing two tablespoons of sugar to half a
teacup of water and then stirring in a bottle of tried-and true Buckley’s Cough Mixture.
December 22: It is the birth date
of Lucien Bouchard in Saint-Coeur-de-Marie, Quebec. He will grow up to create
the Bloc Quebecois when the Meech Lake Accord fails and be Leader of the
Queen’s Loyal Opposition in Parliament. He will leave Ottawa to serve as Premier of Quebec
and return to private life in 2001.
The Pontiac Special Six Coach is unique to
Canada. It rides on the 2 851.15-millimetre (112.25-inch) Chevrolet wheelbase. Built in GM plants in
Ontario and Saskatchewan, the Coach lists for $1,087.
