The Ontario Regiment Ferret Club, a part of the Oshawa Military Industrial Museum, has come a long way in the fifteen years since our beginning. Starting out with a troop of nine Ferrets, we have now over 55 vehicles in our collection. We have just aquired an 'Abbot' self propelled gun from the British Army in Suffield, Alberta.

The club started out in a two bay garage in Oshawa in 1980. Before long it became necessary to find a permanent home for our rapidly growing collection. We felt there was no more appropriate location than the Oshawa Airport which was one of the many British Commonwealth Air Training Plan sites for allied pilots (including Americans) during the Second World War. The airport also served as the dropping off point for candidates to Oshawa's then ultra secret and now world famous spy school Camp 'X'. James Bond's creator, Ian Fleming, trained here as dis many other intelligence agents who played such a vital part in th winning of World War Two.

The Ontario Regiment, Royal Canadian Armoured Corps, has a long history of service and gallantry that is proudly documented and displayed at our museum.

Our museum is much more than a colelction of military objects. The museological function of aquisition, storage, conservation, research, exhibition, and in our case actually restoring many of the military vehicles to full running condition, makes sense only if these functions contribute to an understanding of the subject under study. The musuem plays a commemorative role in recalling the sense of human loss and sacrifice by Canadians that is integral to our past conflicts. This role becomes particularly difficult to recall as war recedes from living memory.

We believe that Canadians do value reminders of courage and self sacrifice - not only on the part of the sailors, soldiers, and airmen, but also of the people struggling and united on the Oshawa home front during times of war. The museum seeks to preserve elements of our military heritage and hopes to touch both men and women of all ages.

In keeping with our theme of remembering the self sacrifice of our armed forces, 1994 and 1995 have been extremely busy for our museum staff of volunteers. We have supplied and driven vehicles in many D-Day and VE-Day celebrations. With the many Royal Canadian Legion and Canadian War Museum parades we have been in constant demand, but that is what it is all about!

Lost in all the Second War celebrations, has been the 50th anniversary of the United Nations. In honour of this occasion, and to salute the Canadian Peacekeepers around the world, we have painted, marked and displayed in U.N. colours and markings those vehicles in our collection that we feel symbolize the Canadian Peacekeeping effort.

As well as the vehicle collection, we maintain a large collection of uniforms, weapons, medals and artifacts used by the Canadian Army dating from the 1850s to the present.

These artifacts are displayed in diorama settings depicting thier era of use. Many medals are displayed; these include those of past members of the Ontario Regiment, such as our past Honourary Colonel R.S. McLaughlin's (founder of General Motors of Canada) Order of Canada.