Ram: "Anglo-Canadian Cruiser"

[maple_leaf_eh]

A few years ago I met the fellow who restored the CWM's Ram's .30-cal turret. He was a former Regular Army weapons tech or vehicle mechanic (I forget which) who released and took the Algonquin College Applied Museum Studies program. As their 6th semester work placement, students have to find a job and find a project. This man's was that little turret. He had plenty of stories about how careful he had to be with the artifact and the limitations required by the restoration shop's labour and safety rules.

I had a succession of students helping me organize the Mapping and Charting archives. In one situation the royal "we" salvaged boxes of glass magic lantern slides from the old Natural Resources Canada basements. One of the co-ops realized they were published by a settlement propaganda office. That same term, the other co-op found snapshots taken by army surveyors of Inuit people with dates and places. We arranged to share those pictures with Library and Archives Canada for a "naming" project they had to return photos of previous-era subject to modern-day residents of the Arctic. Giving someone a high quality photo of their grandparents is a big deal, especially when only southerners had cameras.