The Host Files: Scout-Guide Week and Scouting in Oshawa

By Adam A., Visitor Host

The week of February 22 is Scout-Guide Week, the celebration of the global Scouting and Guiding movements around the shared birthday of its founder, Lord Robert Baden-Powell, and his wife, Lady Olave Baden-Powell, the former World Chief Guide. These organizations promoting preparedness and community mindedness have long been active in Canada and had an especially notable presence in Oshawa.

Lord Robert Baden-Powell’s role as the founder of Scouting began as a mere coincidence. He was a career soldier of the British Empire and served in a number of colonial campaigns in Africa. During this time, he penned a guide to living off the land and wilderness survival titled Aid to Scouting, meant to instruct the Army’s non-commissioned officers in the skills needed for reconnaissance. At the same time, a grassroots movement had begun to reconnect the youth with nature and revive the rural character that had been lost through industrialization and urbanization. In lieu of more suitable literature, a number of predecessor organizations had adopted Lord Robert’s book, inadvertently turning a niche military manual into a best seller. Lord Robert took a more active role in the movement upon returning from the Second Boer War, organizing the first scout rally in 1907 and rewriting Aid to Scouting to be more directly applicable to youth wilderness instruction, publishing it in 1908 as Scouting for Boys. In 1910 he formally founded the Boy Scouts Association and, along with his sister Agnes, established the Girl Guides in response to the high amount of female interest in scouting.

Scouts Canada would only be established in June of 1914 as an overseas component of the British Boy Scouts Association, but, as in the UK, a number of predecessor organizations and informal scouting troops already existed by that time. This arrangement gave Canada a national council to organize scouting activities and procure uniforms and other equipment for the troops, but Scouts Canada would continue to be internationally represented by its British parent association until 1946.

022.11.1 – scout shirt from the 1930s

Last year the Oshawa Museum received an especially interesting collection of artefacts from this period of Canadian scouting. A collection of Sea Scouts uniform clothes belonging to John Chappell, son of Colonel Frank Chappell, was donated in September. This collection notably contained the uniform John Chappell had worn in 1933, his 6^th year with the 8^th Oshawa Sea Scouts Troop, and the year in which he was one of eight Canadians to attend the 1933 Scouting Jamboree in Budapest, Hungary. This uniform proudly displayed 20 proficiency badges:

• Pathfinder
• Ambulance man
• Cyclist
• Signaller
• Fireman
• Rescuer
• Interpreter
• Naturalist
• Starman
• Citizen
• Swimmer
• Pioneer
• Camper
• Laundryman
• Handyman
• Camp Cook
• Musician
• Electrician
• Auto Mechanic
• Plumber

Detail of 022.11.1, showing the sleeve and badges.

He also had badges designating him as a King’s Scout and a First Class Scout. As Scouts Canada was still internationally represented by the British Boy Scouts Association, his 1933 Jamboree patch is accompanied by a Union Jack patch.

Girl Guides of Canada was established in July 1917, though a number of Guide Companies organized under the British Association had been operating since 1910. The Oshawa Girl Guides began as one of these early groups, first organizing in 1911. For many decades they lacked a permanent meeting place. They met at St. George’s Anglican Church as well as the homes of prominent Oshawa women like Adelaide McLaughlin and Verna Conant.

Camp Samac, c. 1940s; Oshawa Museum archival collection (A002.9.8)

In 1943 Sam McLaughlin donated 150 acres in north Oshawa to Scouts Canada, and three years later it opened as Camp Samac. Camp Samac remains one of Scouts Canada’s largest properties and hosts a number of major scouting events, such as the international Join In Jamboree which has been held there since 2015. In 1947 the McLaughlins would provide the Girl Guides with their Guide House in downtown Oshawa.

Painting of Guide House, 1981, Oshawa Museum archival collection (A013.5.5).

Various troops from both organizations frequently visit the Oshawa Museum to learn about the area’s history and to do Victorian/pioneer crafts. The Oshawa Museum is also currently preparing a new exhibit on the history of Scouting and Guiding in Oshawa which is planned to open later this year.

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Sources:

https://www.scouts.ca/news-and-events/national-calendar.html

https://www.britannica.com/biography/Robert-Stephenson-Smyth-Baden-Powell-1st-Baron-Baden-Powell

http://discoverhistoricoshawa.com/listings/camp-samac/

http://discoverhistoricoshawa.com/listings/girl-guide-house/

February is Black History Month

Every February is celebrated as Black History Month. In Canada, the first Black History Month was celebrated in 1988 in Nova Scotia. The Ontario Black History Society petitioned the Ontario government in 1993 to proclaim February as Black History Month.

In December 1995, after an idea by Rosemary Sadlier, president of the OBHS, the Canadian House of Commons recognized Black History Month in Canada, following a motion introduced by the Honourable Jean Augustine, the first Black Canadian woman elected to Parliament.

In 2008, a motion was introduced by Senator Donald Oliver, the first Black man appointed to the Senate, to “Recognize Contributions of Black Canadians and February as Black History Month,” receiving unanimous approval.

To learn more about Oshawa’s Black history, we invite you to visit our Black History Month Resource page. Here, we have rounded up blog posts written about Oshawa’s Black history and people of note, videos sharing these stories, as well as included links to other organizations and resources.

Visit

Black History Month

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Information about Black History Month in Canada from: https://www.canada.ca/en/canadian-heritage/campaigns/black-history-month/about.html

The Month That Was – February 1863

All articles originally appeared in the Oshawa Vindicator
Content Warning: one article discusses a suicide

February 4, 1863
Page 2
Another Suicide

…It is our most painful task to record the death of Thos. Bartlett, Esq., by his own hands, on Monday last, between the hours of eight and nine o’clock in the morning. The deceased was a brother of the late Wm. Bartlett, Esq., who hung himself… on the 4^th September last, and lived on the opposite side of the road, only a few rods distant from the last residence of the former. Soon after his brother’s sad end, the subject of the present notice was taken ill, his difficulty being a nervous affection which prevented his obtaining sleep, the consequence of which was that he began to fail in flesh. As a remedy he resorted to opium, of which he took repeated and large doses with a view only of procuring sleep as was then supposed, but when it took effect it acted powerfully as an emetic, rather than as a narcotic, otherwise the quantity would most probably have proved fatal. For some time afterwards he lay in a very critical condition…

4 Feb 1863, page 4

February 11, 1863
Page 2

The Emancipation Proclamation to be Photographed – Benjamin J Lossing has obtained permission from the president to take a photograph of the Emancipation Proclamation, which is entirely in Mr. Lincoln’s handwriting. The photograph is to form one of the illustrations in Mr. Lossing’s historical work.

Oshawa Central School
At the last meeting of the Board of School Trustees, applications were received from twelve different young ladies willing to accept one or the other of the two situations open in the staff of teachers of the Central School. Only one of them – a daughter of the Rev. Mr. Cantlon – had ever taught before, and after due consideration of the claims of others, she received the appointment as teacher of the second grade at a salary of $240 per annum. A daughter of Mr. Hurd, of Raglan, was appointed teacher of the first grade, at a salary of $150 per annum. Miss Stone was, at the same time, promoted to the third grade, without increase of salary. The Central School is now better provided with teachers than it has ever been, having two male and three female teachers. Their united salaries amount to $1550. The obnoxious “monitor system” has been dismissed from the school, and teachers are paid for their services and expected to work for the interest and benefit of the school accordingly. The attendance of pupils is very large, notwithstanding the prevalence of disease, giving the five teachers plenty to do, to attend to their proper instruction.

Skirt Lifters – This new and useful invention is becoming very popular with the ladies, and promises to form nearly as important a branch of manufacture ad trade as the hoop skirt business has become. It will be seen on reference to our advertising columns that the original article is to be had at al of our Dry Goods Stores. We see by the Toronto papers that another article designed to serve the same purpose is in the market. It is a Canadian invention called the Patent Canadian Skirt Lifter.

11 Feb 1863, page 3

11 Feb 1863, page 3

February 18, 1863
Page 2
Oshawa Wheat Market

Last week was one of excellent sleighing and persons having wheat to dispose of, took advantage of the good travelling to pour in the golden grain and get, in return for it, the golden coin or the equally prized green colored Ontario Bank note. At Warren’s Mill, from half a dozen to twenty loads of grain were to be seen every day, standing about, wait8ing for their turn at the door to unload, and a similar scene might be witness at that of Messrs. Gibbs & Bros., in South Oshawa. The amount of wheat purchased by the latter firm, and delivered, during the week, was 22,834 bushels; 1[  ],830 were delivered on the last 3 days of the week. The amount purchased by John Warren, Esq., and delivered at his mill, was something over 18,000 bushels during the week.

In another column we give both the Oshawa and Toronto market prices.

Page 3
Oshawa Markets
Fall Wheat: 90  95
Spring Wheat:  80  85
*note, this represents a price range per bushel

18 Feb 1863, page 3

February 25, 1863
Page 2

An ice-bridge, says the St. Catharine’s Journal, has formed at the junction of the Niagara River with Lake Ontario, for the third time in the history of Canada. The cause is the prevalence of south winds for a few days and then a sudden change to the north, the first forcing the ice down the upper lakes into the river, which is prevented by the north winds from getting into Lake Ontario.

Alarm of Fire – On Saturday evening last an alarm was rung out on the fire-bell, and many ran to and fro, looking for the fire. It was at last discovered, by some, in an unoccupied house belonging to Mr. L. Butterfield, on Water Street, opposite Messrs. Warren & Co.’s Tannery. A woman was engaged in cleaning out the house, and the partitions caught fire from an improperly put up stove pipe. It was soon extinguished, before doing much damage.

Page 3
Scarcely a day (says an English paper) passes on which the journals do not record deaths from wearing Crinoline. A young woman at Dalston, for instance, was making a pudding at a table five feet from the fire, when a draught from an open window blew her extended dress into the grate, and not long afterwards she was dead. Verdict of the jury, “Died from fire while wearing crinoline.”

25 Feb 1863, page 3

Prehistoric Oshawa: Glacial Lake Iroquois

By Melissa Cole, Curator

This image of Lake Ontario was taken looking south from Lakeview East Beach. Melissa Cole, 2022

Did you know that Lake Ontario started as a small stream that gradually opened up through the erosion of soft Silurian rocks over thousands of years?

Lake Ontario is one of the five Great Lakes of North America. Surrounded on the north, west, and southwest by the province of Ontario, and on the south and east by the state of New York, its water boundaries, along the international border, meet in the middle of the lake.

Drawing of Lake Iroquois from 1904, showing the original shoreline in green and the present-day Lake Ontario. Source: University Of Toronto, A.P. Coleman Fonds, G 3501 C5 1891 13C

Oshawa lies on a glacial geological feature called the Lake Iroquois shoreline. We know it today as a fairly level band of land ringing Lake Ontario, bordered by the ridge of the prehistoric Lake Iroquois shoreline.  

Lake Iroquois was a proglacial lake, meaning that the lake was situated between rock deposits and an ice sheet. The northern shore of this lake was the southern edge of the retreating glacier. Lake Iroquois was formed by melting glacial ice in the Lake Ontario basin.

General outline of Lake Iroquois about 12 000 years ago in southern Ontario. Image: Royal Ontario Museum

At that time, the St. Lawrence River Valley was blocked with ice, and the lake level rose 30 m (~100 ft) above present day Lake Ontario. The lake drained to the southeast, through a channel passing near present day Rome, New York.  The lake was fed by Early Lake Erie, as well as Lake Algonquin, an early partial manifestation of Lake Huron and Georgian Bay, that drained directly to Lake Iroquois across southern Ontario.

The stream turned into a river that was widened and sculpted by the powerful movement of the continental glaciers. The current level, shape, and direction of flow of Lake Ontario was established over 12,000 years ago.

As it retreated, the glacier left behind Lake Iroquois, a larger version of present-day Lake Ontario.

The old shoreline runs west-east, running roughly parallel to today’s King Street in Oshawa. The shoreline is typified by washed sand and gravel bluffs. It is located well away from the present shore of Lake Ontario.  Remnants of this shoreline can still be seen in various communities today along the north shore of Lake Ontario. The ridges of the old shoreline are evident in Oshawa, where the banks of the old Lake Iroquois shoreline can be seen looking north of Highway 401.  Iroquois Shoreline Park, located on the hills of Grandview Street North and the appropriately named Ridgemount Blvd.,  is the approximate location of the original shoreline of Lake Iroquois.  Further west, the Scarborough Bluffs also formed part of the shoreline of the original lake.  Further east, remnants of the shoreline are visible at Stephen’s Gulch in Clarington and Highway 401, near Cobourg.

This land was valued by Indigenous communities and later by settlers for farming and settlement.  Archaeological reports show that from 1400 – 1450CE, ancestral Wendat communities were utilizing the land around the area of Grandview Street and Taunton Road.

The next time you are taking a drive, I would recommend a drive to the top of the hill of Grandview Street North near Ridgemount Blvd. in Oshawa.  If you stand looking south from that ridge, all that land would have been water.

This photo taken from the top of the hill near Grandview Street North and Ridgemount Blvd. Looking south towards Lake Ontario. Image: Jillian Passmore, January 2023

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Sources:

http://www.lostrivers.ca/points/Lake_Iroquois.htm

Richard Foster Flint, Glacial Geology and the Pleistocene Epoch. 2008

Grahame Larson and Randall Schaetzl, Review: Origin and Evolution of the Great Lakes. 2001

https://ontarionature.org/greenbelt-eastern-expansion/

Panoramic Photographs: From Past to Present

By Kes Murray, Registrar

Working in an archive, you come across some interesting objects. One of the most interesting objects that I’ve come across are panoramic photographs.The archival collection at the Oshawa Museum has a quite a few, ranging from scenery to group photographs. As I am a very curious, I started to wonder about how early panoramic photographs were made…

The Past

Early panoramic photographs were tied to the development of the daguerreotype, the earliest form of photography. Multiple daguerreotypes were taken so that the individual images would overlap. After, you simply place the photographs next to one another and you would have a panoramic, although a little broken up. The example from the Library of Congress shows how an early panoramic photograph would look.

Behrman, Martin, Copyright Claimant. San Francisco, from Rincon Hill. United States San Francisco California, ca. 1910. Photograph. https://www.loc.gov/item/2007660578/.

Towards the end of the 19^th century, the first panoramic cameras were made. In 1897, Multiscope & Film introduced the Al-Vista camera. This camera stayed still as the lens moved 180 degrees. In 1899, Kodak introduced the No. 4 Kodak Panoram camera. This Kodak camera, like the Al-Vista, stayed stationary as the lens moved along a spring. The No. 4 Kodak Panoram had 142 degree angle of view.

In 1904, Kodak manufactured another panoramic camera called the Cirkut. Unlike their previous No. 4 Panoram where only the lens rotated, the Cirkut camera itself rotated, allowing a 360 degree view. This camera became popular with commercial photographers, as it allowed large group photographs.

Although the Cirkut became popular, it produced a distorted view. Since the Cirkut rotated 360 degrees, curved scenes came out looking flat. This is best seen in a panoramic photograph I took of our three houses. If you have been down to visit us, you know that the walkway from Guy House to Robinson House in straight. However, the panoramic I took makes it look like the pathway curves. This is, again, because I had to rotate the camera and thus the photograph becomes misleading.

The Panoramic I took January 12 2023. This photograph shows how panoramic photographs can distort images.

Another great example of the distorted view panoramic photographs came make. View of Simcoe St., from Simcoe St. United Church, (south) to the old City Hall, Simcoe St. N., and King Street from the four corners, East to the Old Post Office, circa 1913. Oshawa Museum archival collection (A981.20.1)

To correct this distortion, photographers would position groups in a curve, so that the photograph would make the group look like they were standing together. The 116^th Ontario County Battalion panoramic photograph example shows how this would look like.

Positioning a group in a curve can correct the 360 degree distortion. 116th Ontario County, Overseas Battalion C.E.F. Niagara Camp July 14th 1916 taken by the Panoramic Camera Co Toronto. Oshawa Museum archival collection (A981.20.2)

The Present

Today, many of us have panoramic camera in our pocket. Our panoramic photograph setting on our phones function the same way as panoramic cameras of the early 20^th century, physically rotating the camera along 360 degrees.

Thanks for coming along this panoramic journey with me!

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Sources:

https://collection.sciencemuseumgroup.org.uk/objects/co8084582/no-5-cirkut-camera-panoramic-camera-rollfilm-camera

https://content.lib.washington.edu/panoramweb/history.html

http://www.earlyphotography.co.uk/site/entry_C110.html

http://www.earlyphotography.co.uk/site/entry_C105.html

https://www.loc.gov/collections/panoramic-photographs/articles-and-essays/a-brief-history-of-panoramic-photography/#:~:text=Shortly%20after%20the%20invention%20of,plates%20side%2Dby%2Dside

https://mikeeckman.com/2016/10/kodak-no-1-panoram-kodak-1900-1926/

https://mymodernmet.com/history-of-panoramic-photographs/