Success Stories

Lest We Forget: The Canadian Expeditionary Force Web Site

Canada sent more than 600,000 people, mostly young men, to the First World War between 1914 and 1918. This army was called the Canadian Expeditionary Force.

During the summer of 1996, a group of young people digitized more than 50,000 pages of attestation papers at the National Archives’ building in Renfrew, Ontario. These papers form part of the personnel records of those who volunteered for the Canadian Expeditionary Force. The project was part of Industry Canada’s SchoolNet Digital Collections program, and was supported by the National Archives of Canada.

The project was carried out under contract to Industry Canada’s SchoolNet Digital Collections program, which gives people 15 to 30 years of age entrepreneurial and technology-based job experience converting collections of Canadian material into digital form for display on SchoolNet. The SchoolNet Digital Collections web site has grown to become possibly the largest single source of Canadian content on the Information Highway.

The tiny Ottawa Valley town of Renfrew sent 55 young men to the First World War. Their names are inscribed on a monument in the centre of town. Renfrew was chosen as the place to begin the enormous task of placing each of the 620,000 attestation papers on the Internet. Carol White at the National Archives and Digital Collections project leader, said the goal is to have all the papers available on the Internet by 2001. So far, the attestation papers of those veterans whose names start with "C", and those from Renfrew have been transferred into digital form and can be viewed on the SchoolNet Digital Collections web site and on the National Archives web site.

These documents, which one would expect to be somewhat routine and bureaucratic, are extraordinarily moving. White said that many browsers and researchers have commented on how surprised they were by the web site. The exact paper filled out by each eager recruit has been digitized in its original format for viewing. It records personal information, such as the colour of a young man’s eyes, his height and weight and distinguishing scars. It records his age, always much too young, and shows his signature. All too often it also records the word "deceased" printed in block letters, and ending the story.

The National Archives was eager to find a way to preserve the papers, explains White. As they are now old and very delicate. Once they are available to relatives and researchers on the Internet, the originals can be stored safely away from light and the stress of handling. Since the web site opened, White says the number of inquiries has gone up dramatically. "We used to handle about 9,000 queries a year," she said. "Now that some of the attestation papers are available digitally, we’re seeing more than 25,000 visits a year to our web site."

A team of four local young people who worked on contract with the SchoolNet Digital Collections program conducted the digitization of the Renfrew attestation papers. These included Kim Hobbs, the on-site manager, Amanda Rath, a second year college student studying to be a teacher’s assistant, Jamie MacDonald, in fourth year law at Carleton University in Ottawa, and Lisa MacFarlane, a high school student who plans a career in graphic design and industrial publishing.

These young people were unanimous in their enthusiasm for the project and for what they learned about Canada’s Expeditionary Force. They were equally pleased with the computer and technology skills they developed through the SchoolNet Digital Collections program. All were convinced that these skills would prove helpful in finding a job in the future.

Visit the National Archives site at http://www.archives.ca