The Canadian Great War Project

I'm just back from the 18th annual Military History Colloquium hosted by The Laurier Centre for Military Strategic and Disarmament Studies (www.canadianmilitaryhistory.com) at Wilfrid Laurier University in Waterloo, Ontario. This was an excellent few days of papers delivered on a wide range of topics in Canadian military history, discussions amongst the attendees, and a dangerous (to the wallet) selection of books for sale. The 19th annual conference will held on 2-3 May 2008 at the University of Waterloo. More details to follow.

A while back I came across the Canadian Great War Project (www.canadiangreatwarproject.com), a website and project run by Marc Leroux. As the site notes:

"The Canadian Great War Project is intended to promote interest in Canada's participation in World War 1, commonly referred to as the Great War, to research the Canadians who participated in the Great War 1914-1919 or other nationalities who served in the CEF. The content is primarily database driven to facilitate searches for information. The site is, and will continue to be, a work in progress; there are currently over 73,000 entries of individual soldiers, and has become a collaborative effort among those interested in researching Canada and the Great War."

The options on the site are pretty straightforward and include "feedback", "searches", "war diaries", "Canada in the war", "books and media", "statistics", "from the front", "memorials", "rolls and awards", "images", links and more. At present, the site contains more than 6,500 war diary entries, 380 transcripted letters and newspaper articles, 530 images and 380 book and media descriptions. All in all, a very interesting and commendable project.