World War I

We left Bruges for Ypres, a new stop for the tour. Ypres was the sight of intense fighting in the First World War, and the town was flattened during four years of shelling. The recent Canadian film “Passendale” highlights what is known as the “Third Battle of Ypres”, as the little village of Passendale is just a few kilometres down the road and is part of what was known as the Ypres Salient. After the war, the British government requested that Ypres remain as a ruin as a memorial to all the lives lost here (Winston Churchill, to paraphrase, said there is no more hallowed ground for the British military than Ypres) since so many men from the British empire (Canada included) gave their lives here. However, the citizens of Ypres slowly returned after the war and wanted to rebuild, so instead the Menin Gate was built as a memorial to all the lives lost. Every night the Last Post is played at the gate, which is covered with the names of men from all over the world (India, Australia, New Zealand, Scotland, Ireland, England, Canada) who came here to die in a twisted, pointless war. We visited the new In Flanders Fields Museum in the old gothic cloth hall (rebuilt after the war). The museum is interactive, and the students got a card with the name of a real person from the war era on it, and would scan it at different points in the museum to find out what the person did before, during, and after the war (if the person survived). It was a good introduction to World War I for the students, as our next stop was the Vimy Memorial.
The students and parents were suitably impressed by the size and beauty of the Vimy Memorial, and we spent some time walking the steps of it and contemplating its meaning. This is one place in Europe where you`re sure to meet other Canadians – there was a high school group from Richmond there at the same time as us, and we found out that one of the teachers is the daughter of a teacher at the Fundamental Elementary school!
We spent our first of two nights at the Family Home youth hostel in Bayeux, with a delicious Norman dinner and some good conversation to end out our first day in France.

At the base of the Vimy monument


Mr. MacKinnon reads Canadian names on the Menin Gate in Ypres