As a result of researching The Stones of Signal Hill at Calgary’s Museum of the Regiments, Al Judson asked if I would be interested in archiving letters from one of the soldiers who would have been trained at Sarcee Camp and probably there when the stones were carried up the hill. This led me to archive, for future generations, over 40 letters from WW1 soldier David Argo to his wife Mae back home in Calgary.

These songs describe the concerns, antics and feelings based on David Argo’s actual words; from the daily regimen of a soldier, to the snowball fight that the Canadians started after a huge deluge of snow in Southern England.

Footnote: David Argo emigrated from Tillymaud Scotland and enlisting meant he was able to revisit his roots. He writes about his travels to Scotland while on leave. Through more research we found ancestors with his namesake in Tillymaud who operate a beef farm. In September 2006, Phyllis took David Argo’s letters, and the stories and songs around David and Signal Hill to his descendants, David Argo, Helen and Rob Smith.