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Valcartier Rises
Ignoring staff advice, Sam Hughes, the Minister of Militia for the Borden government,
chose the flat plains of Valcartier, Quebec, about 25 kilometres northwest of
Quebec City, as the site of a massive training camp for new recruits.
The site had already been earmarked as a future militia camp, but now work had
been started to prepare it for its new role. Hughes and his department had less
than a month to turn the former farmers' fields into the home, school and mock
battleground for thousands of mostly untutored Canadian volunteers. Soldiers
from Canada's small permanent army were called into service to build the skeleton
of the Valcartier infrastructure.
That meant grading roads, installing a massive sewer system, telegraph lines,
electrical wiring and lighting (provided by the Quebec Light and Power Company),
and a three-mile long, 1,500 target rifle range. To get the would-be troops there
special trains were called into service, |
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many of them also carrying tons of equipment, supplies,
food and building materials.
Hughes wanted Valcartier to be more than a sea of white bell tents. He called
on business leaders and political cronies to supplement the government's contribution.
Lumber baron and politician William Price donated potable water to the entire
camp. For his largess, Hughes made him an honorary lieutenant-colonel.
When, at the end of August, the first volunteers arrived, they discovered that
job one for a soldier was helping to build barracks and paddocks, dig latrines
and set up and move the hundreds of conical tents that filled the plains of Valcartier
like the beach umbrellas of holiday makers. But, Valcartier turned out to be
anything but a holiday. |
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Colonel the Hon. Sam
Hughes and officers at Valcartier Camp
Starting from a fertile plain north of Quebec City, Sam Hughes willed to life the Valcartier Camp for Canada's new recruits. |
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