When war in Europe broke out in 1914, why did so many men from Victoria, BC, Canada, enlist enthusiastically? What did they feel about the war they were fighting? What were their personal values? Were they ever disillusioned in the trenches of the Western Front? To what extent did they enjoy combat? How did they regard the German enemy? And faced with artillery bombardment, execrable living conditions, and the fear of death or maiming, what helped them to carry on? In researching these questions, the author found that Victoria was a unique city in several ways and that some assumptions about...

When war in Europe broke out in 1914, why did so many men from Victoria, BC, Canada, enlist enthusiastically? What did they feel about the war they were fighting? What were their personal values? Were they ever disillusioned in the trenches of the Western Front? To what extent did they enjoy combat? How did they regard the German enemy? And faced with artillery bombardment, execrable living conditions, and the fear of death or maiming, what helped them to carry on? In researching these questions, the author found that Victoria was a unique city in several ways and that some assumptions about...

"Imperial Eden" is a collection of poems written mainly by citizens of Victoria, British Columbia, in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries about that city. Established in 1843 as a Hudson's Bay Company trading post, Victoria became the capital of the province in 1866. Before the opening of the Panama Canal and the construction of the Canadian Pacific Railway, however, its inhabitants were relatively isolated from the rest of North America. The city's beautiful location and its semi-Mediterranean climate inspired visitors, locals, and poets to describe it as a "paradise." But this...

"Imperial Eden" is a collection of poems written mainly by citizens of Victoria, British Columbia, in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries about that city. Established in 1843 as a Hudson's Bay Company trading post, Victoria became the capital of the province in 1866. Before the opening of the Panama Canal and the construction of the Canadian Pacific Railway, however, its inhabitants were relatively isolated from the rest of North America. The city's beautiful location and its semi-Mediterranean climate inspired visitors, locals, and poets to describe it as a "paradise." But this...