In addition it was very hot and dusty and a long way from home.  How­ever in spite of var­ious dif­fi­cul­ties the camp was soon made habi­table, largely through the unit's efforts under the direc­tion of Lt. J.B. Fran­cis and Lt. Larry McCaus­land with some help in the way of mater­ials from the Camp Engi­neers.  Even so it was Christ­mas before such com­forts as light and heat were instal­led.  The two bat­ter­ies were still main­tained as com­pletely separ­ate units and it was not until the fol­low­ing Feb­ruary that they were regi­men­ted.
8.  On the 11th October the batteries received their first tran­sport con­sis­ting of 6 Indian MCs with side­cars and on the 21st Octo­ber 8 - 18 pdrs and 4 - 4.5 how­it­zers arrived.  All train­ing in CANADA was done on these equip­ments and no 25-pdrs were avail­able, until arri­val in Eng­land.  Once the camp was more or less organ­ized an inten­sive train­ing pro­gramme was launched.  This con­sis­ted mainly of route mar­ches (?) with small doses of dri­ving, main­ten­ance, gun drill and rifle range.
landscape view of the picturesque Ottawa River
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