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Lady Aberdeen was the wife of the Earl of Aberdeen: Governor General of Canada from 1893 to 1898, and along with the National Council of Women announced plans for a special commemoration of Queen Victoria’s Diamond Jubilee. They created an organization that is known as the Victorian Order of Nurses of Canada on February 1st 1897.  
 
The organization was set up in Branches to supply Nurses to the sick that did not have access to nursing aid. The first branches were established in Ottawa, Montreal, Kingston, and Vancouver.  
 
Western and northern Canada was sparsely populated, and so in 1898 the Order set up Cottage Hospitals, forty-four in all. By 1924 they had all been taken over by local authorities. By now the Order had returned its old mandate, and the Nurses visited isolated farming districts. The Nurses were required to travel great distances on horseback, and sled to call on farm families.  
 
As populations increased in Canada public health nursing organizations, and municipal hospitals were established, the VON was not required, and so withdrew from the country areas. They re-established in towns and city’s to specialize in servicing the patients who did not require, could not afford a full time nurse, or did not have to be hospitalised, but required nursing services.  
 
In the past the Order has been called upon to serve at times of Disasters, and Emergencies. They nursed the sick during the Typhoid epidemic in the Klondike in 1898, and cared for the wounded after the Halifax explosion of 1917. During both World Wars the Victorian Order served the Canadian Armed Forces. In Brandon the Order only maintains an office during the Flu shot season, they inoculate private organizations on request.  
 
Source: http://www.von.ca/doc/News%20Releases/NR_GG%20Patronage_2006.doc