Whyte Avenue Parade 1916

[jhill]

Be warned! This is the hockey thread!

As some of you may know, the Stanley Cup semi-finals are in full swing, and the Edmonton team is doing reasonably well against Anaheim. During each game, and especially after each victory, the faithful trek down to Whyte Avenue in the Strathcona district of south Edmonton, which houses the most popular bar district in town. If a contest is successful, Whyte Avenue will be noisy until the wee hours. (I write this within about eighty yards of that street).

This photograph shows Whyte Avenue on February 29, 1916, on the occasion of the Red Cross Day military parade. The 'teaser' photo comes from the City of Edmonton Archives site. The code is the order number if you want a real print.

The camera appears to be on the south east corner of the intersection of Whyte (82nd) Avenue and 104th (Main) Street. It looks north east. This is ground zero of today's bar district. The City Archives indexes this photo with the keyword '202nd Battalion', which might lead one to suspect that the troops in view were from the 202nd (Edmonton Sportsmen) Battalion. However, although the newspaper reported 200 of the Sportsmen taking part, there were fewer than 100 who had attested by that date, the battalion having only started recruiting some two weeks previously. More likely, the reference is to the 202nd Battalion Headquarters, which were in the Sheppard Block towards the left of the photo. There were close to 6000 men reported as taking part, from no fewer than eight battalions. Many of these would embark for overseas within a few months.

This was a fairly long parade, having started on the north side of the river, across the High Level Bridge, and back again. The temperature was minus twelve Fahrenheit, and several buglers had their instruments stuck to their lips.

Once again, I apologize for inflicting hockeyness on those for whom it holds no interest.

[swizz]

Looks chilly! (The story about the buglers makes me shudder a bit though). I take it if they are ice hockey players they would be used to that??

Swizz