Canadian Police Officer Guarding the Pharmacy in Waist-High Flood Waters in Galt, Ontario, 1974

Even as the flood waters rose, the sun shone bright on May 17, 1974. Earlier rains and a decision to open reservoirs upstream had sealed downtown Galt’s fate. An already-swollen Grand River could take no more, pouring fast-flowing water over its banks toward an unsuspecting community. Miraculously, no one was killed, but hard lessons were learned in ‘the Great Flood of 1974’.

Const. John Shuttleworth wore waders as he stood waist-deep in Cambridge on May 17, 1974. (Mike Hanley/Canadian Press)

Pots and pans floated out the back door of George’s Chinese restaurant. Shoes of all styles and sizes bobbed around like little leather canoes, riding the rising rapids out of The Right House department store. Const. Jack Shuttleworth stood stoically at the submerged corner of Ainslie and Dickson streets.

He stared straight ahead as the Grand River washed through downtown Galt with surreal ferocity early on a blue-sky afternoon on the 17th of May. He watched the furious flow of the Great Flood of 1974. Power boats, fences and cars spun by in the waist-deep water.

The waders he borrowed from a downtown sporting goods store kept him dry. His presence let the soggy citizens of the newly created City of Cambridge — a melding of Galt, Preston and Hespeler — know the law still existed in the sunshine of the swirling mayhem.

“The whole idea was to be a deterrent,” Shuttleworth once recalled. “So nobody would be picking this stuff off.”

(via The Spec)

30 Amazing Photos Capture Billboards of Vancouver in the 1970s

Vancouver is a major city in western Canada, located in the Lower Mainland region of British Columbia. It has the highest population density in Canada and it is one of the most ethnically and linguistically diverse cities in Canada.

Vancouver is consistently named as one of the top five worldwide cities for livability and quality of life, and the Economist Intelligence Unit acknowledged it as the first city ranked among the top ten of the world's most well-living cities for ten consecutive years.

While forestry remains its largest industry, Vancouver is well known as an urban centre surrounded by nature, making tourism its second-largest industry.

Major film production studios in Vancouver and nearby Burnaby have turned Greater Vancouver and nearby areas into one of the largest film production centres in North America, earning it the nickname “Hollywood North”.

These amazing photos were taken by POP SNAP that show billboards of Vancouver in the 1970s.

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24 Amazing Photos Show Interiors of Canadian Hotels' Rooms in the 1950s and ’60s

A set of amazing vintage photos will bring you back to the 1950s and 1960s to see what interiors of Canadian hotels' rooms looked like over 60 years ago.

Nova Scotia. Motel Transcotia, Liverpool

Newfoundland. Chignic Lodge, Doyles

Newfoundland. Hotel Gander, Gander

Ontario. Arrowhead Camps & Motel, Nestor Falls

Ontario. Galaxy Motor Hotel, Val Gagne

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50 Studio Portrait Photos of Nelson Residents by A. Renwick During the 1960s

Born 1909 in Milestone, Canadian photographer Archibald Albert “Archie” Renwick moved to Nelson in the late 1920s and graduated from Nelson High School. In his youth, he worked at Renwick’s Transfer and Taxi on Vernon Street.

Studio portraits of Nelson residents taken by A. Renwick in the 1960s

In the 1930s, Renwick started a grocery business called Renwick and Romano. He left Nelson in the early 1940s and graduated from a photography school in Chicago in 1942.

After obtaining his training, Renwick returned to Nelson and opened Renwick’s Portrait Studio on 316 Baker Street. The studio moved to 577 Ward in 1958 and remained at this location until the business closed in 1984 after his dead, aged 75.

As a business that was active for more than forty years, Renwick’s Portrait Studio photographed thousands of Nelson residents. In addition to earning the confidence of the Kootenay Doukhobor community, the studio also photographed such notable residents as the Bishop of Nelson, Martin Michael Johnson (1899-1975), and Mayor Louis Maglio (1917-2007).

These vintage photos from Touchstones Nelson are part of his work that Renwick took portraits of Nelson residents at Renwick’s Portrait Studio during the 1960.

Gergley, Paul and Family, 1960

Appleton, Don and Family, 1960

Cameron, Steven and Family, 1960

Marcotte, Allan, 1960

Morgan, Jack, 1960

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Amelia Earhart Completed the First Transatlantic Solo Flight by a Woman on May 21, 1932

Amelia Earhart, the pioneering female pilot, achieved enduring fame with the many aviation records she set during the 1920s and ’30s. Early in her career she achieved an impressive feat when she became the first woman to receive a pilot’s license from the distinguished National Aeronautic Association, on May 16, 1923. In 1928 she became the first woman to cross the Atlantic by plane when she flew as part of the crew (her duty was to keep the flight log) with Wilmer Stultz and Louis Gordon.

That successful airplane flight obviously whetted her appetite for aviation, and four years later Earhart made a bold attempt to fly across the Atlantic Ocean solo. This daring flight feat had only been accomplished once before, by Charles Lindbergh in 1927.

On 20 May 1932, the fifth anniversary of Lindberg’s famous flight, Earhart departed Newfoundland, Canada in her 600-horsepower Lockheed Vega to cross the vast ocean with 420 gallons of gasoline and a quart of chicken soup. Her goal destination was Paris, but after 14 hours and 56 minutes of fighting strong winds and some slight mechanical problems, she settled for landing her plane in Derry, Northern Ireland. She had done it—the first woman to fly solo across the Atlantic! For this 15-hour feat of endurance and pluck she became the first woman to receive the Distinguished Flying Cross, and the flight cemented her fame.

Earhart later told reporters, “I was never in Ireland before, but the sight of the thatched cottages and the marvelous green grass and trees left me no doubt that I had actually made the Emerald Isle. I was still surer when I heard the brogue of my friend Dan McCallion.”

After spending the day in Derry, Earhart traveled first to England and then to Paris, where the French Government awarded her with The Cross of the Legion of Honor. When she returned to America, President Hoover bestowed upon her the National Geographical Medal, and Congress awarded her the Flying Cross.

In 1937, Amelia Earhart set herself the challenge of being the first woman to fly around the world. This challenge, however, would prove too great and she disappeared after taking off from Lae New Guinea, bound for Howland Island in the middle of the Pacific Ocean. A rescue attempt lasted 17 days and scoured more than 250,000 square miles of ocean, but she was never found.

The aviator remains a household name in the U.S, and an airport in her home state of Kansas was named in her honor.

Vintage Found Photos Show the Architecture of Toronto in the Late 1850s

Toronto is the provincial capital of Ontario and the most populous city in Canada. The city is the anchor of the Golden Horseshoe, an urban agglomeration surrounding the western end of Lake Ontario. Toronto is an international centre of business, finance, arts, and culture, and is recognized as one of the most multicultural and cosmopolitan cities in the world.

Toronto was designated as the capital of the province of Ontario in 1867 during Canadian Confederation. The city proper has since expanded past its original borders through both annexation and amalgamation to its current area of 630.2 km2 (243.3 sq mi).

Toronto is also known for its many skyscrapers and high-rise buildings, in particular the tallest free-standing structure in the Western Hemisphere, the CN Tower.

Here below is a set of 12 cards from John Rochon that shows buildings of Toronto, ON around 1858 or 1859. They were found at a flea-market decades ago complete with cover and booklet.

King Street, Toronto, ON, circa 1858-59

Masonic Hall Buildings, Toronto, ON, circa 1858-59

Mechanics Institute and St. James Parochial School, Toronto, ON, circa 1858-59

Normal School Buildings, Toronto, ON, circa 1858-59

Provincial Exhibition Buildings, Toronto, ON, circa 1858-59

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The Stories of Capt. Stanley Tucker and His Ford Mustangs: Serial Number 1 and Serial Number 1,000,001

Captain Stanley Tucker (May 12, 1931 – June 10, 2008) was a Canadian airline pilot for Eastern Provincial Airways of Newfoundland, Canada. Tucker was the original owner of two milestone Ford Mustangs within the car’s first two years of production.

Serial Number One

Before the car officially hit the sales floor on April 17, 1964, thousands of Mustangs had already been rolling off the assembly line for the past five weeks and getting shipped out to dealerships all over. The car was one of approximately 180 pre-production cars built at the Rouge between February 10 and March 5, 1964. These initial cars served two purposes:

1. They eased Ford into full production by familiarizing workers and supervisors with the build process.
2. They formed a batch of physical cars that could be shipped to every major Ford dealer in time for the April 17 launch.

Logically, the first cars built were sent to the farthest dealers – hence Serial Number One wound up 2,180 miles from Dearborn in St. John’s, Newfoundland. (Twelve of these pre-production cars, incidentally, went to the New York World’s Fair for use in Ford’s Magic Skyway ride). Mustang Serial Number One in particular was painted Wimbledon White with serial number 5F08F100001. The first-ordered Mustang was shipped to the Ford of Canada sales district and was taken on a nationwide tour of Ford dealer showrooms all across Canada ending at George Parsons Ford, a dealership perched on the eastern edge of the continent in St. John’s.

On April 15, 1964, Tucker was driving past the Ford dealer when he noticed a big crowd in the dealership on introduction day and stopped in to see what the commotion was about. By the time he finished dinner that evening, he decided that he had to have that car.

On April 16, 1964, Tucker walked into the showroom. Mr. Parsons, owner of the dealership, wanted to retain the car for a few days because it was the only Mustang he had in stock, but Capt. Tucker persuaded his young salesman, Harry Phillips, to make it available. A deal was reached and a check was written on the spot. Tucker took serial number 5F08F100001 home and, for a short time, was the general public’s only Mustang owner. At the time, he had no idea he had purchased the first Mustang ever ordered.

“The serial number didn’t mean anything to us,” Phillips told USA Today. “We didn’t know it was the first one made. We didn’t realize the significance of the car ’til Ford came looking for it.”

That Mustang was not supposed to have been sold. It was a preproduction vehicle intended to go back to Ford, and it ultimately ended up back with Ford in 1966 when Tucker exchanged it for the 1 millionth Mustang.

Serial Number 1,000,001

Once it became known a couple of weeks later that Mustang Number One had been inadvertently sold, Ford officials reached out to Tucker to try to buy it back. Tucker declined the request. He spent the next two years putting some 10,000 miles on his pony car.

By early 1966, when nearly one million Mustangs had been sold and the car’s status as a Ford landmark was secure, the Ford Motor Company called again. This time, Ford offered Tucker a worthy trade: in exchange for returning Serial Number One, he could have the One Millionth Mustang free of charge, equipped to his specifications. Tucker agreed and, when filling out the order, covered the entire option sheet with single large “X”. The car was a silver frost convertible with a black top, a deluxe black interior with a wood-grain steering wheel, styled steel wheels, Cruise-O-Matic transmission, air conditioning, stereosonic tape player, disc brakes and rally pac. It even had a Philco television. The only extra he didn’t take was the High Performance 289 engine – it carried a shorter warranty period.

Tucker traveled to Dearborn, Michigan, where Ford wined and dined him in the company of executives such as Lee Iacocca and Don Frey. On March 2, 1966, Tucker’s loaded ’66 Mustang convertible rolled off the line amid fanfare and excitement. Capt. Tucker posed for photos with his new Silver Frost 1966 Mustang convertible. Meanwhile, Ford reclaimed Tucker’s much-loved Serial Number One and soon donated it to The Henry Ford where it is on display to this day.

After taking delivery of the Millionth Mustang early in 1966, Tucker pressed it into daily use in all kinds of weather, including nasty Canadian winters. The elements took their toll. Through the years, he drove the Mustang thousands of miles. He even pulled a trailer with it. By the time the ’70s rolled around, Tucker knew it was time to sell the Mustang and opt for something new. He sold the car to his mechanic and never saw it again.

This is the first Mustang produced. It was sold to Stanley Tucker of St. John’s, Newfoundland, Canada on April 16, 1964 and is actually a 1965 model.

In 1959, Jacques Plante Was the First NHL Goaltender to Create and Use a Practical Mask

It’s hard to imagine a time when goalies didn’t wear face protection, but before Jacques Plante debuted his mask in 1959, that was the norm for brave NHL netminders. The early prototypes looked more spooky than stylish and offered little protection compared to the ones used today, but goalie masks have now developed into technologically advanced works of art.

Jacques Plante (January 17, 1929 – February 27, 1986), hockey legend and goalie for the Montreal Canadiens hockey team (1954–1963), designed and built the first-ever fibreglass mask in 1956 to protect himself from being injured by flying pucks. At that time, he wore it during practices only. Then, during a game with the New York Rangers on November 1, 1959, a flying puck hit his nose, and broke it.

“In those days, you had Bobby Hull in the league and [Tim] Horton and [Andy] Bathgate and all those big shots and they’re coming at you, from five, ten feet in front and wind up, they didn’t know where it was going, you had to stop it,” said Plante, when recalling his goaltending days on CBC’s 90 Minutes Live in 1977. “You had no mask and the coach kept telling you: ‘Use your head.’ And I did.”

After “a few broken bones in the face,” Plante said he decided that “if I’ve got to use my head, I might as well wear the mask.”

When Jacques Plante returned to the ice after being treated in the dressing room, he wore the mask to protect his injury. He continued to wear the mask during games while his nose healed. The hockey mask caused a sensation. His coach wanted him to stop wearing it. Plante refused. But, since the team was winning, he got his way.

Plante subsequently designed his own and other goaltenders’ masks. He was not the first NHL goaltender known to wear a face mask. Montreal Maroons’ Clint Benedict wore a crude leather version in 1930 to protect a broken nose, but Plante introduced the mask as everyday equipment, and it is now mandatory equipment for goaltenders.

In the later part of his career, Plante would also play for the New York Rangers, the St. Louis Blues, the Toronto Maple Leafs and the Boston Bruins.

In 1978, Plante was inducted into the Hockey Hall of Fame. He died in 1986 at the age of 57.

“He was noted for his quick reflexes and wandering style of play. But he'll be remembered most for being the first goaltender to wear a face mask on a regular basis,” the CBC’s Terry Walker told viewers when Plante died. “Before, coaches didn’t like the idea of goalies wearing something that might distract them, but Plante played just as well after adopting the face mask.”

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33 Fascinating Photos Capture Street Scenes of Montreal in the 1950s

Montreal is the most populous municipality in the Canadian province of Quebec and the second-most populous municipality in Canada.

The city is centred on the Island of Montreal, which got its name from the same origin as the city, and a few much smaller peripheral islands, the largest of which is Île Bizard. It has a distinct four-season continental climate with warm to hot summers and cold, snowy winters.

Montreal is the second largest primarily French-speaking city in the developed world, after Paris. It is situated 196 km (122 mi) east of the national capital Ottawa, and 258 km (160 mi) south-west of the provincial capital Quebec City.

Montreal is considered one of the most liveable cities in the world, and the best city in the world to be a university student in the QS World University Rankings.

Take a look at these fascinating photos to see what street scenes of Montreal looked like in the 1950s.

Montreal street scene

A woman smelling some flowers offered by a vendor at the Bonsecours market

Bank of Montreal

Bonsecours Market

Château Ramezay

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