Sketch by David Collier
Hamilton-based cartoonist David Collier is the creator of the acclaimed Collier’s series and Just the Facts, both published by Drawn & Quarterly. In April, Collier took part in the Canadian Forces Artists Program, a storied project that invites Canadian artists to witness and document the military’s day-to-day operations.
The tradition of Canadian war art began during the First World War, with the creation of the Canadian War Memorial Fund in 1916; it was resumed during the Second World War with the Canadian War Records Program in 1942. In 1968, it was revived as the Canadian Armed Forces Civilian Artists Program (CAFCAP), which ran until 1995, when it was cancelled due to budget cuts. The initiative was re-launched in 2001 as the Canadian Forces Artists Program. Collier spent two weeks aboard the patrol frigate HMCS Toronto, where he observed navy drills in the waters off Newfoundland. What follows are his written and sketched impressions of that mission.
Day 1
April is the cruelest month, they say, and nowhere is it crueler than in the Maritimes.
I've had the experience of traveling east from central Canada during this month, so I'm familiar with the way April's tease of spring weather is multiplied by a trip from Ontario to the east coast. The first time I witnessed this effect was at the end of April 1987, when I was a raw recruit in the Canadian Armed Forces. I was flown to Halifax, and then proceeded by train to what was then the forces’ main training centre, the former naval base at Cornwallis, N.S.
Raw recruits have a lot of time to stand still and think about their environment. When my fellow recruits and I arrived at Cornwallis that April, someone had already decided that the attire for everyone at the base would be summer dress. That meant that the upper part of our uniforms consisted of the ubiquitous Canadian Forces beret, and a button-up combat shirt. During those first April days, we had not yet been issued the T-shirts that went under those uniforms. As the days went along into May, these clothes were fine, but oh, those early mornings that we stood silent and still in the dawn's early light – how we froze!
We stood there in ranks of three, morning after morning, waiting for a non-commissioned officer to show up in his warm car, to climb out of that warm car and finally march us to breakfast. I remember, during those mornings, looking at one young tree – really, just a sapling – and being struck by how strange it seemed: back in Ontario, trees of this ilk had already budded; the green of their leaves was starting to show. But here in Nova Scotia, all the branches were bare, the sites of their future buds closed up like tight, hard fists. (April, by the way, is best on the Prairies, far from any water-effect coldness.)
Only yesterday, I had canoed my son home from school through the waters of Cootes Paradise, a wetland at the western end of Lake Ontario. James and I had paddled silently up to turtles sunning themselves on logs. We got pretty close to them before they became aware of us and plopped themselves in the water.
It was quite a different scene when my plane arrived today in St. John's, Nfld.: the temperature was -3 C, and there were scattered bits of snow on the ground. After introductions to the armed guards at the top of the gangplank, I started drawing a picture of the ship. I figure I'd better do this right away, despite the snow. We sail tomorrow at 0900 and this is my last chance to draw the vessel before we go.
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