Do you use one of WPG's repros?
Yes, I think the KD items I am wearing are from WPG. Good stuff .... Not really the "regulation' 1896 pattern, but it is what is available ....
At any rate, photographs from the Boer War show an extremely wide (almost bewildering) range of shades and patterns of tunics (with noticeable differences in pocket-flap configuration, as well as collars - i.e. both standing and "stand and fall" collar patterns at the same time. As an example, this is a group of Officers of the 2nd Bttn., Royal Canadian Regiment of Infantry in South Africa. I think there is a mix of drill and serge tunics here, which would account for some of the tonal differences, but note how "un-uniform" they seem to be -
The Canadian Tunic that you posted sure does look an awful lot like the Canadian WW1 tunic. Is it possible that the Canadian tunic started out as simply a serge P'96 that later got hip pockets because the British had them? Or maybe they were Brit issue that the Canadians added breast pockets because they were more practical?
Actually, the main point I was trying to make about these apparently unique Canadian serge tunics is that they all apparently had
both breast and skirt pockets from the outset, and in fact clearly look pretty much identical to the Pattern 1903 Canadian tunic, although clearly pre-dating its formal adoption in 1903 - in other words, that this pattern must have been a prototype or "trials pattern" introduced by Canada, which ultimately got adopted for general issue in 1903. (It is, indeed, the P'1903 tunic which Canadian soldiers were wearing at the start of WWI in 1914.)
Here, for example, are two details from a group photo of men of the 2nd Canadian Mounted Rifles taken just after their return to Canada from South Africa in June of 1902, in which both British Pattern 1899 serge and "P'1903-like Canadian pattern" serge tunics are being worn. The differences are fairly obvious, but one telling feature is that the standing collar of the Canadian-pattern tunics is substantially higher than that of the P'1899 British tunics ....
First, the Canadian pattern, which looks so much like the not-yet-adopted P'1903 tunic, including its 7-button front closure -
Now, other men of the same unit, in the same group photo, but wearing British pattern 1899 tunics (technically "field service frocks") with their shorter (and probably more comfortable) standing collars and 5-button front closure -
Every time I see pics of Canadian troops I think "your hats are crooked...square them away!" Really cool to see how the troops in the field personalized their head gear.
Actually, a Canadian naturally thinks that a peaked
American campaign hat is being worn a quarter turn out of proper orientation! And it is, of course, quite proper that we should think that way, since we were using the peaked felt hat pattern as military (and semi-military) headgear well before the Yanks started - i.e. in the 1890's, while formal adoption as part of the US Army uniform did not occur until 1911!
These men are members of the North West Mounted Police contingent in London for Queen Victoria's Diamond Jubilee celebrations in 1897, with this style already well ensconced as part of their uniform -