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A few weeks ago, an event that I first attended in 2012 had its final form. Back on the 20th and 21st of June, a group gathered to celebrate the life of Bill Schwab, who had passed away in 2025 while doing what he did best: leading a group of keen photographers to explore the world. Bill was the brains behind an event called Photostock. It started as a small gathering in the woods on his property in Michigan, far from the dirty industrial south, but in the far more beautiful northern parts of the state. And while I’m a fan of an event becomingRead More →

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The main reason behind this epic road trip was to fill in a bunch of gaps in my War of 1812 project. I was on the tail end of the project and wanted to fill in a bunch of gaps before I got married in 2017. And there were two areas that I had not yet explored and wanted to because they offered up parts of the conflict that are often forgotten or not even presented here in Ontario. While the majority of the war took place here in Ontario, there were also a series of battles along the East Coast. So I plotted theRead More →

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Within the Canadian Mythos of our nation, there are several events, call them fixed points in the timeline, that have been arbitrarily assigned to build the Canada we live in today. These points are, of course, all post-contact with the Europeans, but that’s a discussion for another time. You can look at the arrival of the French and the founding of Quebec City and Montreal. The French and Indian War that established British rule, the American Revolution, the two attempted invasions, and the arrival of the Loyalists. The War of 1812, which saw the American invasions repeatedly tossed back. The Canadian Confederation in 1867. WouldRead More →

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By 1814, both sides were starting to tire of the war. For the Americans, they had been facing no actual movement. The Royal Navy was causing havoc on the east coast. The British held Mackinac Island, Fort Niagara, the District of Maine, and Prarie Du Chien. The Americans only held Fort Erie, having been turned back in their Niagara invasion. They were under siege and had some control of the western edge of Upper Canada but nothing beyond the settlements of Sandwich and Amherstburg. The possibility of peace negotiations had started in 1813 but were soon shut down. However, with long lines of communication betweenRead More →

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Well we made it through another year. Like every years things did not always go to plan and that’s okay. Because it’s important to be flexible, especially when this blog and other channels is not a full time job. The year was a lot of fun despite being a little chaotic. I always have hope that things will eventually calm down, but they do in fact always calm up. There was a rather unfortunate bump through the fall with a five week support staff strike that did reduce some capacity for creation, but I had the chance to play catch up through October and NovemberRead More →

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The war had ground to an unceremonious stalemate; it had not gone to plan for both the British and Americans. The Americans continued believing that the Canadians would welcome them as liberators rather than invaders and join them in an easy campaign to free them all from the shackles of the Crown and a distant parliament. The British believed that once Napoleon was safely taken care of, a series of campaigns on the eastern seaboard would help the Americans sue for peace on British terms. None of that happened. Instead, the Americans were left to command a small sliver along the Detroit River of UpperRead More →

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The war had become a stalemate, and peace negotiations reached an impasse. Drummond’s siege remained in place but had been reduced to ineffective artillery fire, and most of his troops were reduced by illness due to the ongoing rain and poor conditions in the camp. Drummond’s requests for additional troops had been granted, and elements of the 4th and 82nd Regiments marched with heavy siege artillery to Niagara. On 4 September, the American defenders of Fort Erie did attempt to dislodge the British attackers. The short skirmish resulted in several deaths, including the traitor Joseph Willcocks and many of his Canadian Volunteers in the shortRead More →

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Dear Chicago, I like ketchup on my hotdogs, sorry, I do, but I don’t when I’m in Chicago. I’ve done a shot of Malört, it was interesting for sure. I’ve visited a bunch of cities of various sizes throughout the US, but the one that I honestly thought I could live and survive in was Chicago. There is something about the city that attracted me, I felt comfortable here. And that’s saying something because I don’t like big cities. The first time I visited it was almost as if I was returning to a friend. My first tastes of the city came from the showRead More →

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Napoleon had been exiled, to begin with, and the first British reinforcements were starting to arrive on the other side of the Atlantic, bringing with them not only highly trained and effective troops but a steady corps of officers hand-selected by Lord Wellington to take charge and get a great deal of hurt to the Americans. One such officer, Major-General Robert Ross, was dispatched to the Imperial Fortress on Bermuda to coordinate a series of attacks along the eastern seaboard of the United States with Vice-Admiral George Cochrane to distract and pull American resources away from Upper and Lower Canada to respond to the threat.Read More →

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The early parts of 1814 had proven to be a quiet point in the war. While there was some action, it was almost a pause in the war, and both sides regrouped from a fiery 1813. While the British took the time to regroup, lick their wounds and prepare for renewed conflict and the promised reinforcements from Europe, the Americans took a different approach. Secretary of War John Armstrong would mostly be free of some of the older Generals, those who had achieved their rank through appointment rather than merit. As those officers had failed on the front lines, Armstrong either reassigned them to lessRead More →