The Wrap: Lest We Forget

The Sampson-Matthews Print Program brought oil-silkscreen pictures of Canada to army barracks, air-force bases, mess halls and training camps in Canada and Europe during the Second World War, to remind servicemen and women of home.

It would become Canada’s largest public-art project and a post-war symbol of a country building a new identity forged by millions of Canadian soldiers, sailors, air crews and medical personnel during the war.

Now, the long-forgotten morale-boosting initiative — which includes contributions from Emily Carr, A.Y. Jackson and other Group of Seven painters — is the focus of a new exhibit in Winnipeg.

A Dutch family that hosted two Winnipeg soldiers for dinner every Sunday night for months during the Second World War is hoping to connect with them or their family.

Alfons Van Wijk, 81, and his 83-year-old sister, Rose Bakker, are hoping that either the soldiers are still alive, or they told their family members about the dinners they had with the family.

Meanwhile, a retired Dutch diplomat is hoping learn more about Pte. John Lewis Hughes, who worked at the hospital in Eriksdale, Man., and lived on Spence Street in Winnipeg before dying on a Second World War battlefield.

Pieter Valkenburg is trying to find a photograph of Hughes so it can be added to the Faces to Graves project at the Canadian War Cemeteries, which aims to include every Canadian soldier interred in the Netherlands.

Royal Canadian Legion branches from coast to coast will host Remembrance Day services on Saturday, and once all the speeches, prayers and moments of silence are through, members and guests will likely commiserate over a cold one, and a round or three of what’s been called the “greatest pastime.”

Over time, cribbage, a two-, three- or four-person game that combines a standard deck of playing cards, coloured pegs and a distinctive scorekeeping board, has become as synonymous with this country’s veterans’ halls as affordable suds and meat draws.

Here in Winnipeg, so-called crib nights are staged at one branch or another Monday through Friday, and routinely draw crowds of people well versed in terminology such as dime, muggins and stink hole.