About

This site is dedicated to the members of the Canadian Armed Forces, their dependents and the teachers who lived, worked and played in the Ruhr Valley.

We need YOUR help!

If you are among those lucky people who spent time with the Canadian Brigade in the Ruhr Valley of Northern Germany, either in the Army, as a dependant, or as a civilian attached to the Army, you can help us. We are in need of pictures, particularly of the early days in the Brigade area, and we are missing a few Hemer yearbooks.

BACKGROUND

During the Summer of 2001 Larry McGuire and I touched base 48 years or so after we had left Hemer.  We talked about our time in Hemer in particular and in Germany in general.  Both of us commented on an article that had recently appeared in MacLeans about Military Brats who had lived in Germany.  We were both disappointed that the article, several pages in length, had just one small reference to those of us who lived in the Ruhr Valley during the 50s, 60s and early 70s.

We touched base with Ann Desormeaux (Mills) who had been in Hemer with us and decided that the best way to address MacLeans’ oversight was to create a site about Military Brats who had lived in the Ruhr Valley, we opened the site on October 29, 2001 with a page about Hemer High.

Several months later Ray Morley contacted us and suggested it would be interesting if the site increased its content to cover the Forts and the activities of serving members.  This seemed like a good idea so the site started to include pictures of Forts Chambly, Beausejour etc.

The last piece of the puzzle was to include the Soest High site created by Tricia Hill (Cann) in August 2001.

I believe this site is the only one providing a comprehensive perspective on life in the Ruhr Valley during the Cold War as experienced by members of the Canadian Army, their families and the teachers who taught in the schools.

Visitors to the site have been generous with pictures and financial donations over the 11 ½  years the site has been active, without these contributions it would probably have suffered the fate of so many sites and disappeared.

Ann, Larry, Ray, Tricia and Mike Leury have worked hard over the years providing ideas for the site, its layout etc and without their help the site would have been less successful that it has been – 185,783 hits to date.  Ed Hood has provided graphic support over the years, without Ed’s help the site would have been less pleasing visually than it has been.

Ed Horka has played a pivotal role in moving the site to the new layout, without his help there would not have been a new version.  In addition, Manfred Schmitt and Garvin Barnicoat helped us by reviewing the site as we made changes.  Bryon Ross reviewed the Beta version of the site and was also kind enough to send an announcement about the site to his Soest mailing list. All of us hope you like the new look, the new features and that you will leave your comments in the Forum.

Thanks to everyone for their support.

Dave Larke