When I was sixteen, I went through an obsession with Jack the Ripper, and a friend of mine was good enough to lend me her copy of Patricia Cornwell's Portrait of a Killer: Jack the Ripper, Case Closed. At the time, it was excellent. Someone had actually solved the Ripper murders. Of course, within a year or so I found the harsh criticism Cornwell had received for her publication, and I realized that her explanation wasn't nearly as accurate as her book made it appear. Cornwell concludes that an artist named Walter Sickert was the Ripper, based on an interview with the artist's son from the early twentieth century.
Obviously, I picked the History Magazine article entitled "Walter Sickert: Capturing the Darker Side of Life" for this review. After I found out that Cornwell's novel has been so heavily criticized, I gave up researching Sickert and started reading other fictionalized narratives about the Ripper. The article promised, based on the magazine's subtitle, that it would provide a view of Sickert from a social perspective rather than a historical one. Sure enough, the article mentioned his connections to the Ripper case, but the focus was turned on Sickert's life and contributions to the world of art. It focused on his place in late Victorian society, the critical reactions to his artwork at the time, and his life at home, not the possibility of his being the Ripper killer.
In terms of classroom application, I think this magazine has a lot of potential. It focuses on untold stories from history, filling in the gaps of cultural knowledge left open by popular opinion and interest. Best of all, unlike Canadian Military, it requires little context to know exactly what the article is discussion. History does an excellent job of situating events within popular cultural consciousness and then extrapolating on those ideas. Personally, I find the tone a little too informal for good, academic criticism, but it's a great starting point for a lot of discussion. A subscription to this magazine could inspire students to think critically and broadly about historical events, to examine all the different perspectives surrounding singular events.
Tuesday, March 8, 2011
Monday, March 7, 2011
Review: Canadian Military
In conjunction with its website, Canadian Military makes for an interesting classroom resource. When describing my experiences with history in high school, I would often joke with my friends, "Every ten pages in the Canadian history textbook, we had avoided another war. Every ten pages in the American history textbook, they had just fought in another war, sometimes with themselves." Even for the daughter of a Canadian military history buff, a man who served on reserve for three years, my idea of the Canadian national identity never included a military, and when it did, it was always had a negative implication. Canadian Military, as a magazine, is a reminder that the Canadian military wasn't just a collection of blunders by Sam Hughes.
The only difficult part of integrating Canadian Military into the classroom is that it requires a fair bit of context to make it readable. I picked the article "On Target September 7", which describes an election and chain of command that I'm completely unfamiliar with. I think I understand what's happening, but I can't be sure without a lot of context to fill in the gaps of my knowledge. On the one hand, this website could force teachers to work harder at developing a more well-rounded history curriculum, one that takes into consideration all of the Canadian military's hard work from throughout history, the politics that take place in the forces, and their continuing significance in society today. Unfortunately, teachers already have so much work to do to prepare for their lessons that it's doubtful they'll have the time or energy to develop a decent historical analysis using all that Canadian Military has to offer.
Another complaint about the magazine is that so much of it is written in a conversational tone that it's difficult to tell what facts have been embellished or are clearly hearsay. In the article I read, there was such an air of incredulity that I fear what I was reading was pure fiction. It was like a Tom Clancy novel online. I think that the magazine does have some advantages for teachers, but not enough to warrant full integration into the classroom.
The only difficult part of integrating Canadian Military into the classroom is that it requires a fair bit of context to make it readable. I picked the article "On Target September 7", which describes an election and chain of command that I'm completely unfamiliar with. I think I understand what's happening, but I can't be sure without a lot of context to fill in the gaps of my knowledge. On the one hand, this website could force teachers to work harder at developing a more well-rounded history curriculum, one that takes into consideration all of the Canadian military's hard work from throughout history, the politics that take place in the forces, and their continuing significance in society today. Unfortunately, teachers already have so much work to do to prepare for their lessons that it's doubtful they'll have the time or energy to develop a decent historical analysis using all that Canadian Military has to offer.
Another complaint about the magazine is that so much of it is written in a conversational tone that it's difficult to tell what facts have been embellished or are clearly hearsay. In the article I read, there was such an air of incredulity that I fear what I was reading was pure fiction. It was like a Tom Clancy novel online. I think that the magazine does have some advantages for teachers, but not enough to warrant full integration into the classroom.
Sunday, March 6, 2011
Review: Maclean's, Hello, Harper's
May I just please take a moment, without fear of mockery, admit my deep love of all things British, especially the fantastical narratives surrounding the royal weddings? Yes, I understand that these narratives are ridiculous and, especially in Diana Spencer's case, brutal, because they hide the truth of the human condition, of social interaction, of real people making real connections to one another, but for some reason, I can't get enough of them. They make me believe, at the expense of other people, that there are two human individuals created exactly for one another with the wealth and resources to make an impossibly beautiful event possible. It's a pipe dream, I know, but for those few, blissful seconds that I pick up a copy of Hello! magazine, I can pretend, the same way I pretend when I read a Jane Austen novel or watch the latest romantic comedy, that the world is nothing but a collection of archetypes, that there's an ongoing narrative to protect me from falling into harm's way or being alone for the rest of my life, and everyone gets exactly what they deserve.
Of course, I eventually have to close the magazine. My incredulity can only take so much in a single day, and Hello! magazine pushes the limits of my disbelief's suspension. Hello! is Canada's answer to People and Us Weekly from the United States. It's nothing but columns of celebrity gossip, particularly surrounding the royal family and Celine Dion. Half of it's reported in the same bold font, capital letters, and tiny quotables; the other half is barely confirmed hear say that's meant to inspire the dreamy feelings I recount in the first paragraph. In the classroom, there's virtually no benefit to introduce Hello! magazine unless it's as a cultural artifact. Reading it in conjunction with other magazines like MacLean's or textbooks would elucidate the sheer fantastical quality of Hello! magazine. You could use it in a study about reporting, about contemporary politics and interests. Or your students could examine it privately for the sake of pure enjoyment. There's nothing like a good story.
MacLean's and Harper's have considerably more critical clout. The former is perhaps the most accessible for students: it takes Hello!'s inflammatory language, its clipped, decontextualized comments and blends them with some actual reporting to create an interesting article that actually has some historical relevance. This isn't to say MacLean's is the best source, only the most accessible one. There's still an element of the dramatic to MacLean's that I don't appreciate. In one of the first articles we read in class, a reporter discussed where Nelson Mandela was going to be buried...before Mandela had even died. Speculative fiction should enter a history classroom undisguised.
Harper's is bar far the most objective, but without the dramatic quality provided by Hello! and MacLean's, along with its relentless pretentiousness, it would be difficult to introduce Harper's to anything less than a postsecondary setting. There's always something to be said about feeling when fostering engagement in students, even if those feelings are inspired by pure artifice. There's a time and a place for Harper's, and that's not high school.
Of course, I eventually have to close the magazine. My incredulity can only take so much in a single day, and Hello! magazine pushes the limits of my disbelief's suspension. Hello! is Canada's answer to People and Us Weekly from the United States. It's nothing but columns of celebrity gossip, particularly surrounding the royal family and Celine Dion. Half of it's reported in the same bold font, capital letters, and tiny quotables; the other half is barely confirmed hear say that's meant to inspire the dreamy feelings I recount in the first paragraph. In the classroom, there's virtually no benefit to introduce Hello! magazine unless it's as a cultural artifact. Reading it in conjunction with other magazines like MacLean's or textbooks would elucidate the sheer fantastical quality of Hello! magazine. You could use it in a study about reporting, about contemporary politics and interests. Or your students could examine it privately for the sake of pure enjoyment. There's nothing like a good story.
MacLean's and Harper's have considerably more critical clout. The former is perhaps the most accessible for students: it takes Hello!'s inflammatory language, its clipped, decontextualized comments and blends them with some actual reporting to create an interesting article that actually has some historical relevance. This isn't to say MacLean's is the best source, only the most accessible one. There's still an element of the dramatic to MacLean's that I don't appreciate. In one of the first articles we read in class, a reporter discussed where Nelson Mandela was going to be buried...before Mandela had even died. Speculative fiction should enter a history classroom undisguised.
Harper's is bar far the most objective, but without the dramatic quality provided by Hello! and MacLean's, along with its relentless pretentiousness, it would be difficult to introduce Harper's to anything less than a postsecondary setting. There's always something to be said about feeling when fostering engagement in students, even if those feelings are inspired by pure artifice. There's a time and a place for Harper's, and that's not high school.
Saturday, March 5, 2011
Review: Canada's History
History magazines have to be the greatest magazines on the planet. I thought Google was the only place to find great lesson ideas and teaching methods. Apparently there are actual, textual documents that I can get subscriptions to for that kind of thing. Canada's History/The Beaver has a dual purpose: provide some pretty awesome articles and interviews pertaining to Canadian history AND suggest ways of teaching history in the classroom through differentiated instruction, lesson plans, and field trips.
Canada's History/The Beaver website is equally accessible for teachers, including my favourite page called "Young Historians". It can be found under the education section, and it includes a long list of articles and blogs written about and by history students from across Canada. The reason this page struck such a chord with me was because I'd never seen anything like this in the English department. There's no celebration of the new critics in our midst; I can't think of a good reason why. Maybe it's that English is so varied? Huh, history seems to be the same way as a discipline, never mind! Anyways, this page has a list of really fascination links - including ones that are totally punny! I really love me some puns - that are all personal accounts from history students across the country. My favourite was Shelagh Staunton, a student at UWO, who recently published a book of letters and correspondences from World War One. Her shock was genuine, her excitement was sincere, and her research was very interesting.
In Literary Studies, which is not the only kind of criticism I have experience with but the only branch I've ever participated in at a graduate level, critics rarely explore their own personal experiences. That's better left to individual reviewers on the Chapters site. From the very first essay I wrote in grade 10 to the very last essay I wrote during graduate studies, I was told that my opinion on a particular work, any emotions it elicited within me, or any observations that lacked a textual reference had to be omitted from my work. This is kind of a shame for me, since I really started to love criticism in graduate studies. Watching new texts excited me. I started to see the world as a growing collection of essays that had yet to be written. There were even some texts that I found I liked strictly because they were critically interesting. Nevertheless, no one in academic wants me to talk about my emotions, and if I do, they have to be in one of the lesser forms of literature: blogging, for instance.
What Canada's History/The Beaver is doing is fabulous. They're validating emotional responses of history graduate studies, all of whom, I'm sure, experience the same thrill of analysis as I do, and while they're still delineating between academic writing and personal writing by hosting blogs, it's nice to see greater circulation for critics' personal responses. Sir Ken Robinson states that the education system is training students to think of their bodies as nothing more than transports for their brains. Critics generally behave as if this training has worked. The body includes feelings, sentiment, emotional reactions, all that stuff that has no place in the academia in any other capacity than transport. By showcasing the emotional reactions of critics and encouraging students to discuss their feelings, Canada's History/The Beaver doesn't disavow the emotional capacity of critics or the pleasure that goes into the act of criticism. They also manage to avoid compromising their discipline in the process by showing the acts of textual analysis working in tandem with the emotional reactions. As a result, Canada's History/The Beaver offers a broader definition of what it means to be a historian, which is something all teachers and students can benefit from.
Canada's History/The Beaver website is equally accessible for teachers, including my favourite page called "Young Historians". It can be found under the education section, and it includes a long list of articles and blogs written about and by history students from across Canada. The reason this page struck such a chord with me was because I'd never seen anything like this in the English department. There's no celebration of the new critics in our midst; I can't think of a good reason why. Maybe it's that English is so varied? Huh, history seems to be the same way as a discipline, never mind! Anyways, this page has a list of really fascination links - including ones that are totally punny! I really love me some puns - that are all personal accounts from history students across the country. My favourite was Shelagh Staunton, a student at UWO, who recently published a book of letters and correspondences from World War One. Her shock was genuine, her excitement was sincere, and her research was very interesting.
In Literary Studies, which is not the only kind of criticism I have experience with but the only branch I've ever participated in at a graduate level, critics rarely explore their own personal experiences. That's better left to individual reviewers on the Chapters site. From the very first essay I wrote in grade 10 to the very last essay I wrote during graduate studies, I was told that my opinion on a particular work, any emotions it elicited within me, or any observations that lacked a textual reference had to be omitted from my work. This is kind of a shame for me, since I really started to love criticism in graduate studies. Watching new texts excited me. I started to see the world as a growing collection of essays that had yet to be written. There were even some texts that I found I liked strictly because they were critically interesting. Nevertheless, no one in academic wants me to talk about my emotions, and if I do, they have to be in one of the lesser forms of literature: blogging, for instance.
What Canada's History/The Beaver is doing is fabulous. They're validating emotional responses of history graduate studies, all of whom, I'm sure, experience the same thrill of analysis as I do, and while they're still delineating between academic writing and personal writing by hosting blogs, it's nice to see greater circulation for critics' personal responses. Sir Ken Robinson states that the education system is training students to think of their bodies as nothing more than transports for their brains. Critics generally behave as if this training has worked. The body includes feelings, sentiment, emotional reactions, all that stuff that has no place in the academia in any other capacity than transport. By showcasing the emotional reactions of critics and encouraging students to discuss their feelings, Canada's History/The Beaver doesn't disavow the emotional capacity of critics or the pleasure that goes into the act of criticism. They also manage to avoid compromising their discipline in the process by showing the acts of textual analysis working in tandem with the emotional reactions. As a result, Canada's History/The Beaver offers a broader definition of what it means to be a historian, which is something all teachers and students can benefit from.
Thursday, March 3, 2011
Mask Making
It was a day that I wish I brought my camera. There's nothing more worthy of photographs than watching friends apply strips of plaster to their face in order to create masks. I didn't apply the plaster to my face. My make-up, which is a point of pride for me, usually takes about forty minutes to apply in the morning, and I couldn't bear the thought of ruining all my hard work for the sake of a mask. Well, that, and I was didn't know how I would be able to clean up the mess it made. Make-up for me usually includes at least four colours of eyeshadow, eyeliner, mascara, foundation, powder, blush, and a lip colour, all of which would have melted and swam underneath the wet plaster, leaving me looking more like the Wicked Witch of the West than the tropical princess look I was going for.
(I'm pretty sure my make-up was tropical that day. I seem to remember being a little embarrassed when I declared I wouldn't be wearing the mask as I made it when I showed up for the lab, given my obscene amount of make-up. I think I was wearing a mix of pinks, oranges, and yellows that would have made Joseph's coat look drab.)
Anyways, mask making begins with strips of plaster from the craft store that are dipped in water and applied on the face or, in the case of women who wear too much make-up, onto a tin foil mold of the face. I pressed a two-ply piece of tin foil on my face and pressed it into the contours, an act that succeeded in not messing up my make-up. I then began applying strips around the eyes and nose.
One of my favourite things to do with make-up is apply it in asymmetrical styles. I started with colours at first - applying one colour on one eye and a contrasting colour on the other eyes - but I've since started playing with shapes and styles. Over Christmas I created a look based on Alfred Hitchcock's The Birds where I painted small, black bird silhouettes flying up towards my right eye along the cheek while another flock of bird fluttered away from my left eye along the crease towards the temple. I used that idea to form my mask: one half of the face sweeps up towards the temple, the other half curves down towards the jaw. I also dotted the edge with small balls that I would paint later. It was suggested to me by the professor that I use the mask to perform a dramatic recitation of Sappho, but this never came to fruition. The mask is still unpainted, and between all my other school work, I didn't have the time to memorize the poem. It was a disappointment indeed; there's nothing I love more than being on stage nowadays.
Mask making would be an awesome activity for any classroom. I'm inclined to do it with my student for any project really. English, history, cosmetology...it seems to be a good fit for just about anything.
(I'm pretty sure my make-up was tropical that day. I seem to remember being a little embarrassed when I declared I wouldn't be wearing the mask as I made it when I showed up for the lab, given my obscene amount of make-up. I think I was wearing a mix of pinks, oranges, and yellows that would have made Joseph's coat look drab.)
Anyways, mask making begins with strips of plaster from the craft store that are dipped in water and applied on the face or, in the case of women who wear too much make-up, onto a tin foil mold of the face. I pressed a two-ply piece of tin foil on my face and pressed it into the contours, an act that succeeded in not messing up my make-up. I then began applying strips around the eyes and nose.
One of my favourite things to do with make-up is apply it in asymmetrical styles. I started with colours at first - applying one colour on one eye and a contrasting colour on the other eyes - but I've since started playing with shapes and styles. Over Christmas I created a look based on Alfred Hitchcock's The Birds where I painted small, black bird silhouettes flying up towards my right eye along the cheek while another flock of bird fluttered away from my left eye along the crease towards the temple. I used that idea to form my mask: one half of the face sweeps up towards the temple, the other half curves down towards the jaw. I also dotted the edge with small balls that I would paint later. It was suggested to me by the professor that I use the mask to perform a dramatic recitation of Sappho, but this never came to fruition. The mask is still unpainted, and between all my other school work, I didn't have the time to memorize the poem. It was a disappointment indeed; there's nothing I love more than being on stage nowadays.
Mask making would be an awesome activity for any classroom. I'm inclined to do it with my student for any project really. English, history, cosmetology...it seems to be a good fit for just about anything.
Wednesday, March 2, 2011
A Little Bit About Laughter
I used to get into a lot of discussions about God, faith, and religion with my mother during my teen years. She was the only adult I knew who wouldn't ignore my spiritual confusion or berate me for feeling atheistic. I think she got annoyed with me, but she's my mother. She has a high tolerance for annoyance, or at least she should after having four children, all of whom are annoying, not in the least counting myself. Furthermore, she can't stop interacting with me just because I ask questions about the nature of existence. Darwin agrees with me.
Anyways, I remember one conversation where I brought up prayer, and my mother told me that post-operative patients who pray experience faster recovery times. I didn't believe her at first, but then I did the research and discovered that she wasn't just filling my head with maternal niceties: patients actually do experience faster recovery times when they are faithful to a religious denomination and pray regularly. Apparently, the act of praying relaxes the body, stimulates the mind, and keeps the patient's mood more level. Whether this is a placebo effect or not, I can't deny it. The science is actually out there, all conducted by competent medical officials and published in peer-reviewed journals. Check out PubMed and you'll see what I mean.
Prayer isn't the only act that speeds up recovery and assists in the healing process though. As I learned in my graduate Indigenous Literature class and my Aboriginal Education courses, laughter also has healing properties similar to prayer. Laughter and, by extension, humour causes the body to relax, stimulates the mind, and keeps the patient's mood elevated or at the very least more level. I don't mean to suggest that the effects on the body while laughing are the same as well praying, but they are nevertheless similar.
The reason I'm writing about praying and laughing is because the one thing that really sticks in my memory from Veronica Fedor's visit to our class was her laugh. It was a whole-body laugh, a lean-your-head-to-the-sky laugh, an open-your-mouth-and-bare-your-teeth laugh. It was a laugh that took all her intercostal muscles, diaphragm, lungs, heart, neck, throat, larynx, jaw, and tongue to accomplish, a laugh that started somewhere in the depths of her abdomen and rose up to the ceiling of the Bora Laskin auditorium with a strength and force greater than any army or nation. Hers was a laugh with the weight of ages, one that turned terror into something else, something manageable, something that, in retrospect, could be laughed at.
It's hard to believe her face was the same as the one in her passport. That Veronica was much more steely and stony than the woman who sat in front of us in the Bora Laskin. It's difficult to imagine her smiling or laughing when those old photos were taken, but I can't imagine that laugh was born overnight. That laugh was cultivated. It was reinforced over the years to withstand the hardships, built like a prayer to accept what cannot be changed and see the humour in it, the dumb luck, the good fortune, and the wonder.
Anyways, I remember one conversation where I brought up prayer, and my mother told me that post-operative patients who pray experience faster recovery times. I didn't believe her at first, but then I did the research and discovered that she wasn't just filling my head with maternal niceties: patients actually do experience faster recovery times when they are faithful to a religious denomination and pray regularly. Apparently, the act of praying relaxes the body, stimulates the mind, and keeps the patient's mood more level. Whether this is a placebo effect or not, I can't deny it. The science is actually out there, all conducted by competent medical officials and published in peer-reviewed journals. Check out PubMed and you'll see what I mean.
Prayer isn't the only act that speeds up recovery and assists in the healing process though. As I learned in my graduate Indigenous Literature class and my Aboriginal Education courses, laughter also has healing properties similar to prayer. Laughter and, by extension, humour causes the body to relax, stimulates the mind, and keeps the patient's mood elevated or at the very least more level. I don't mean to suggest that the effects on the body while laughing are the same as well praying, but they are nevertheless similar.
The reason I'm writing about praying and laughing is because the one thing that really sticks in my memory from Veronica Fedor's visit to our class was her laugh. It was a whole-body laugh, a lean-your-head-to-the-sky laugh, an open-your-mouth-and-bare-your-teeth laugh. It was a laugh that took all her intercostal muscles, diaphragm, lungs, heart, neck, throat, larynx, jaw, and tongue to accomplish, a laugh that started somewhere in the depths of her abdomen and rose up to the ceiling of the Bora Laskin auditorium with a strength and force greater than any army or nation. Hers was a laugh with the weight of ages, one that turned terror into something else, something manageable, something that, in retrospect, could be laughed at.
It's hard to believe her face was the same as the one in her passport. That Veronica was much more steely and stony than the woman who sat in front of us in the Bora Laskin. It's difficult to imagine her smiling or laughing when those old photos were taken, but I can't imagine that laugh was born overnight. That laugh was cultivated. It was reinforced over the years to withstand the hardships, built like a prayer to accept what cannot be changed and see the humour in it, the dumb luck, the good fortune, and the wonder.
Tuesday, March 1, 2011
The Ross Rifle
My firearm education began when I was quite young: too young, I imagine, by comtemporary standards. Forty years ago, there wouldn't be anything strange about a six year old being taught to handle his- or herself around a gun. Now, it seems, if something has even the slightest potential to do harm, it must be kept out of the child's reach until they're mature enough to handle it. Of course, by that time, they're past the point of learning about safety or sense, which leads, I would argue, to greater danger in the future.
Not that all children should learn their way around guns. Knowledge about firearms and weaponry isn't exactly necessary for children. In my family, it certainly wasn't. It just so happened that Dad had an interest, and he didn't want that interest to be misconstrued or engaged with irresponsibly. Hence, the education in rifles at such a young age. Two things happened in my household when you turned six: 1) you got a Swiss Army knife, and 2) you fired a gun for the first time. True, it was a BB gun, but still, we handled the bigger hunting rifles when Dad was illustrating was he said were three rules of firearms.
"First," Dad said, "you always check to make sure the gun isn't loaded." At six years old, I was barely bigger than a toddler, so checking the barrel of a hunting rifle was pretty much impossible on my own. Nevertheless, I had the open weapon in my hands and was staring down the empty barrel a second later. The way Dad talked about checking the barrel had me paranoid that guns could somehow load themselves when you weren't looking. Every time I stared into the barrel, I half expected to stare into darkness, the pinhole of light at the mouth of the weapon sealed up behind a bullet. That was never the case.
The solid click of metal as the gun sealed shut still gives me shivers. I am still scared of getting my finger caught in the interlocking metal sheaths, slicing open my skin or creasing my flesh into blood blisters. Every time Dad and I get out the guns, I have phantom pain in my fingers, small stinging spasms like the gun barrel has nipped me.
"Second," Dad pressed his index finger on the stock, "never put your finger on the trigger till your ready to fire." I lived in gun culture, even then, so much so that I couldn't fathom not having my finger on the trigger if I was holding a gun. Dirty Harry never held the stock. Han Solo never stayed a hand on his blaster. My finger felt useless on the stock. The feeling was foreign. I was so inundated with weaponized heroes that not holding the trigger seemed wrong.
"Third," and this was the rule that had Dad shaking the rifle at me for emphasis, "never, ever point this at anyone. Ever." Even if I checked the barrel, even if my finger wasn't on the trigger, I was not supposed to take aim in anyone's general direction. I was to point the gun at the floor if I was going to point it anywhere, and never have it trained on my feet.
This past summer, I was reacquainted with my father's firearms after a long absence, but I still remembered myself. I checked to make sure they weren't loaded, I kept my finger off the trigger, and I didn't point them at anyone. Dad gave me a different lesson this time though. He told me all about his Ross Rifles.
Ask anyone in a grade 10 history class...okay, not anyone. Ask someone who's been paying attention what the Ross Rifle is and it's pretty much guaranteed they'll tell you that the Rosses were one of the biggest problems faced by Canadian soldiers during the First World War. The bolt would frequently jam or backfire, resulting in the injury or death for the shooter. The fact that it was endorsed by Sam Hughes didn't help the Ross's reputation. I, like many students, was under the impression it was a poorly made weapon, and I considered the Ross to be an indication of military mismanagement during the First World War.
Trust my father to set me straight in this matter. No, he didn't deny that the Ross had its problems, but unlike my Grade 10 history teacher, Dad contextualized it for me. The Ross had a special kind of bolt that automatically turned and locked into the barrel, unlike most bolts which had to be rotated in order to lock. This made loading and reloading easier over other models from the time like the Lee Enfield. This bolt made the gun popular for snipers during the war, a fact I didn't realize until I read Joseph Boyden's Three Day Road and had this conversation with Dad.
Unfortunately, this innovative bolt proved to be the Ross's undoing for trench warfare. If any kind of dirt got lodged in the barrel, the bolt would jam and be nonoperational. The bolt threads could be damaged from foreign matter in the barrel, and even when they were cleaned, the bolt would close but not lock, meaning the round could still be fired. Wikipedia actually has a fantastic picture of the Mark II and III Ross Rifle bolts on their site, including a close-up of the threads.
Having handled rifles in the past, I was marveled by the Ross, which handled beautifully in my clean, not-at-all-trench-like basement. I didn't get to fire it at the time, but I had a new respect for the weapon from this conversation. I wish my Grade 10 history class could have instilled the same kind of reverence for a Canadian produced firearm. No offence, Lee Enfields. I'm sure you were a better alternative for the trench-bound.
Below are two pictures of my dad's Rosses. Both have been sportized, but the shape of the weapon is still there:
Not that all children should learn their way around guns. Knowledge about firearms and weaponry isn't exactly necessary for children. In my family, it certainly wasn't. It just so happened that Dad had an interest, and he didn't want that interest to be misconstrued or engaged with irresponsibly. Hence, the education in rifles at such a young age. Two things happened in my household when you turned six: 1) you got a Swiss Army knife, and 2) you fired a gun for the first time. True, it was a BB gun, but still, we handled the bigger hunting rifles when Dad was illustrating was he said were three rules of firearms.
"First," Dad said, "you always check to make sure the gun isn't loaded." At six years old, I was barely bigger than a toddler, so checking the barrel of a hunting rifle was pretty much impossible on my own. Nevertheless, I had the open weapon in my hands and was staring down the empty barrel a second later. The way Dad talked about checking the barrel had me paranoid that guns could somehow load themselves when you weren't looking. Every time I stared into the barrel, I half expected to stare into darkness, the pinhole of light at the mouth of the weapon sealed up behind a bullet. That was never the case.
The solid click of metal as the gun sealed shut still gives me shivers. I am still scared of getting my finger caught in the interlocking metal sheaths, slicing open my skin or creasing my flesh into blood blisters. Every time Dad and I get out the guns, I have phantom pain in my fingers, small stinging spasms like the gun barrel has nipped me.
"Second," Dad pressed his index finger on the stock, "never put your finger on the trigger till your ready to fire." I lived in gun culture, even then, so much so that I couldn't fathom not having my finger on the trigger if I was holding a gun. Dirty Harry never held the stock. Han Solo never stayed a hand on his blaster. My finger felt useless on the stock. The feeling was foreign. I was so inundated with weaponized heroes that not holding the trigger seemed wrong.
"Third," and this was the rule that had Dad shaking the rifle at me for emphasis, "never, ever point this at anyone. Ever." Even if I checked the barrel, even if my finger wasn't on the trigger, I was not supposed to take aim in anyone's general direction. I was to point the gun at the floor if I was going to point it anywhere, and never have it trained on my feet.
This past summer, I was reacquainted with my father's firearms after a long absence, but I still remembered myself. I checked to make sure they weren't loaded, I kept my finger off the trigger, and I didn't point them at anyone. Dad gave me a different lesson this time though. He told me all about his Ross Rifles.
Ask anyone in a grade 10 history class...okay, not anyone. Ask someone who's been paying attention what the Ross Rifle is and it's pretty much guaranteed they'll tell you that the Rosses were one of the biggest problems faced by Canadian soldiers during the First World War. The bolt would frequently jam or backfire, resulting in the injury or death for the shooter. The fact that it was endorsed by Sam Hughes didn't help the Ross's reputation. I, like many students, was under the impression it was a poorly made weapon, and I considered the Ross to be an indication of military mismanagement during the First World War.
Trust my father to set me straight in this matter. No, he didn't deny that the Ross had its problems, but unlike my Grade 10 history teacher, Dad contextualized it for me. The Ross had a special kind of bolt that automatically turned and locked into the barrel, unlike most bolts which had to be rotated in order to lock. This made loading and reloading easier over other models from the time like the Lee Enfield. This bolt made the gun popular for snipers during the war, a fact I didn't realize until I read Joseph Boyden's Three Day Road and had this conversation with Dad.
Unfortunately, this innovative bolt proved to be the Ross's undoing for trench warfare. If any kind of dirt got lodged in the barrel, the bolt would jam and be nonoperational. The bolt threads could be damaged from foreign matter in the barrel, and even when they were cleaned, the bolt would close but not lock, meaning the round could still be fired. Wikipedia actually has a fantastic picture of the Mark II and III Ross Rifle bolts on their site, including a close-up of the threads.
Having handled rifles in the past, I was marveled by the Ross, which handled beautifully in my clean, not-at-all-trench-like basement. I didn't get to fire it at the time, but I had a new respect for the weapon from this conversation. I wish my Grade 10 history class could have instilled the same kind of reverence for a Canadian produced firearm. No offence, Lee Enfields. I'm sure you were a better alternative for the trench-bound.
Below are two pictures of my dad's Rosses. Both have been sportized, but the shape of the weapon is still there:
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