During "back-to-school" season in Canada, inexpensive "Heritage notebooks" made by Hilroy are a common site. These notebooks are 12.7cm by 20cm and stitched (or stapled) at the top so that they open up instead of to the side. This style of notebook used to be more popular, especially among students, than they seem to be today. The Heritage notebook (sadly made in China for the last 20 or so years), has a long history. Before it was the Heritage notebook, it was the Camp Site note book. In the image below-right (the Camp Site notebook with the Valu-Fair price tag) you can see no. 42-511 printed on the bottom right of the cover. This is the same number found on the current Heritage notebook. This Camp site notebook is probably from the late 1970s or early 1980s. 

The image and style of the Camp Site notebook is copied from the Camp Fire notebook manufactured by W. J. Gage and dates back to at least 1911. The Camp Fire notebook on the right with the Zeller's price tag has the Campus brand on the front and DRG Stationery Company on the back. DRG (Dickinson Robinson Group) purchased the stationery and envelope divisions of W.J. Gage Limited in 1971. They phased out the Gage corporate identity by 1981 but kept the Campus line branding and continued manufacturing in Georgetown, Ontario. This notebook likely dates to the mid-1980s. The DRG Stationery facility in Georgetown closed in 1992.

Spiral Paper Products was a competitor to Hilroy in the 1970s and 1980s and had several look-alike products including the Camp Notes notebook seen here.

Summer means a chance to travel and enjoy the outdoors. The two 5" x 8" notebooks evoke the camping vibe in a remarkably similar way. Both feature the same basic scene from two perspectives. I wonder if the artist was the same or if they were inspired by the same reference image?  I'm sure there is an interesting story to be told here.

The Camp Fire note book is definitely the older notebook design. I found an description of this notebook in the W.J. Gage Stationery catalogue from 1911. The number given in this catalog is No. 27 and the number on my notebook is No. 3327.  The Hilroy company was not established until 1918 (they celebrated their 100th anniversary in 2018).

While these two note books are quite old, the camping theme continues. Field Notes also makes a set of small campfire notebooks. These limited edition notebooks even came with a patch. I wonder if there are any other camping themed notebooks I could add to this tiny collection?

This mini-collection reminds me of "A Collection a Day" from  Lisa Congdon.

​My son and I are fans of the CBC television show Back in Time for Winter. The show follows a modern day family as they recreate life in Canada through several different decades (1940s to 1990s).

The show doesn't really address what school might have been like for Canadian children in these decades, so this is my attempt to fill in the gap. I did recently see that there is a BBC show Back in Time for School. I haven't watched it but there is an episode on The 1960s.

Below you can see a few supplies that Canadian kids might have taken with them as they headed to school in the 1960s.  

Dating vintage school supplies can be difficult so I can be 100% sure all of these specific items were available in the 1960s but I think I'm pretty close with this small selection of items. Do you have any memories of these or other Canadian made school supplies?