Vimy Ridge

The Vimy Ridge memorial is spectacular. So far this journey has been asbout WWII, but it wasn’t that far out of my way and I had to see it. This is the memorial to the actions of the Canadian division at the battle of Vimy Ridge and it is one of two Canadian Nation Heritage sites that are not in Canada. At the outbreak of World War I Canada was still a young nation, less than 50 years old. For the first two years of the war our men were split up into various British divisions. This however was the first time that the Canadian acted together as one unit, the Canadian first division. This was also the first battle for the Allies were everything went exactly by the plan and each objective was reached ahead of schedule. It cemented in the minds of world that Canada was its own nation and that it was not simply a colony of the British any longer. Obviously it is an important step in Canada’s history as a nation.

Now onto the memorial. This memorial is absolutely massive. I knew it was big but I could really imagine the scale of it until I was there. It is very powerful, and rather than go into detail of each aspect I have a small video tour of the area. I I couldn’t recall the symbolism in every aspect of the memorial when I was taking this video, but if you would like to find out more there is a wealth of information on the Veteran Affairs Canada website

Also, they have preserved some of the original trenches here at Vimy Ridge. I was able to take an awesome tour courtesy of some of the Canadian students who work here for the summer. We actually walked in the tunnel system that housed the men right before their attack. I say right before, but most of the men sat in these near dark, cramped tunnels for 36 hrs before they ran up to execute the plan. Even after they fixed them to make them more visitor friendly, I still had to keep my head down to not hit it on the ceiling.

Overall a great experience and I am incredibly happy to have made this little detour. I am still in awe of how wonderful that memorial is.