Adegem

So the very first thing I noticed here was this would be a very nice location, if they didn’t use the parking area right in front for trailer and semi storage. It is right on the main road between Gent and Brugge, and so there is a lot of traffic all the time.

One of the nicest things about this memorial are the 4 gigantic maple trees. Many of the memorials, while not the exact same, have very similar layouts, so I must have missed them previously. It was also quite windy here today, which meant there were maple leaves flying around the cemetery, which added a lot to the memorial itself. I don’t feel any affinity towards beavers or moose or any of the other symbols that some people use to label Canada, but the maple leaf always evokes a certain sense of pride. To be honest I don’t know if I have ever seen a beaver and my encounters with moose have not always been pleasant., but these are just tourist-y ways of identifying us. The maple leaf is different though, and I feel like it is the symbol that truly represents us.

Here at Adegem I also found a grave labeled J. Mcrae. Now this isn’t the grave of John McCrae, the sodier who wrote in Flanders’ Fields; it is in the wrong area(this is the German side of the trench during WWI), it is for the wrong war and it’s spelt incorrectly. But this is the Flanders and so it was fitting that I should find something that reminds me again of that poem.

Finally, here in the town of Adegem, a town of maybe 500 people, they have a Canada museum. I don’t know what it contains, and it was Sunday so I couldn’t go check for myself, but from what a local described to me it seems to be a museum of the Canadian war effort in the region.