Queen Elizabeth II and the Royal Family in Canada

Nora D.S. Robins is liaison librarian in the University of Calgary
Library.

Queen Elizabeth celebrated her Golden Jubilee in 2002. In October of
that year she paid her 21st visit to Canada. Regardless of the pros and
cons of a Canadian monarchy, the Queen continues to be personally
popular in Canada. During the course of her visits she has celebrated
Canada’s birthday seven times, opened the St. Lawrence Seaway, opened
the 1976 Montreal Olympics (where her daughter competed), and opened the
1978 Summer Games in Edmonton. She has visited countless communities,
large and small, from sea to sea to sea.

This delightful book contains a chronology of all the official royal
tours of Canada between 1951 and 2002, and one cannot but be impressed
with the geographic scope of the visits. Members of the royal family
have maintained a long tradition of touring Canada, and one remembers in
particular the many visits of the inimitable Queen Elizabeth, the Queen
Mother.

The Canadian Press is Canada’s national news service. Its journalists
have covered all the royal tours for the daily newspapers. Indeed,
coverage is planned as carefully as any military campaign. The result is
this memorable collection of photographs.

The book’s purpose is to serve as a “scrapbook of memories for
Canadians of the Queen and her family—up close and unfiltered—as
written and photographed by the Canadian Press journalists who were
there.” The editors have done an excellent job. The black-and-white
and color photographs combined with the newspaper coverage will bring
back many memories. This is not only a record of the royal tours, it is
also a history of Canada and its relationship with the Queen and her
family.