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90th Anniversary of Vimy:
Provincial and Territorial Planned Ceremonies
The Canadian memorial on top of Vimy Ridge. The central statue of a woman represents Canada, a young nation mourning her dead.
In April, the Government of Canada will mount a series of events and activities to commemorate the 90th Anniversary of the Assault on Vimy Ridge and to mark the occasion of the dedication of the newly restored Vimy Memorial.
A national ceremony will be held in Ottawa on April 9th. Veteran Affairs Canada will lead an event marking the Battle of Vimy in each provincial and territorial capital.
For Western, Pacific and Northern Canada the commemorative parade schedules are listed below. Soldiers not formally participating in the parade in their provincial/territorial capital are encouraged to attend as spectators.
Edmonton at Winston Churchill Square on Monday April 9th at 11:00 a.m.
Winnipeg at Vimy Ridge Memorial Park on Sunday April 8th at 2:00 p.m.
Regina at Saskatchewan War Memorial on Monday April 9th at 2:00 p.m.
Whitehorse tentatively at Canada Games Centre on Saturday April 14th at tentatively noon.
Yellowknife at Ecole St. Patrick High School on Monday April 2nd at 7:00 p.m.
Victoria at the Provincial Legislative Grounds on Sunday April 1st at 1:00 p.m.
Military participation in each provincial capital will include a 50-soldier guard, while a 25-soldier guard will be provided at each territorial capital. In addition a band (or piper and or buglar) a vigil party, a flag party and a Chaplin will be present at each event.
More Information About the Battle of Vimy Ridge and the
Vimy Ridge Memorial
The Vimy Memorial was unveiled on July 26, 1936. The rehabilitation and restoration of the Vimy Memorial started in December 2004 and completed in 2006
THE VISION OF VIMY
An excerpt taken from The Stone Carvers by Elizabeth Elliott
- pp. 266-267
The Vimy Memorial was built at the site of the great 1917 battle of Vimy Ridge, won with huge losses by Canadians who lived for weeks in tunnels they had carved themselves out of the chalky soil, before bursting out of these tunnels on April 9, into a hell of mud and shrapnel.
It was designed and built by Walter Allward of Toronto: During the First World War he was too old to go overseas.
But then came the vision: 'Who knows who or what shattered his indifference, or why, but the last years of the war came to him as a great awakening that let all the horror in, and he dreamed the Great Memorial well before the government competition was announced.
He saw the huge twin pillars commemorating those who spoke French and those who spoke English, the allegorical figures with downcast or uplifted faces, and in the valley beneath the work of art, the flesh and bones and blood of the dead stirring in the mud.
And then the dead themselves emerged like terrible naked flowers, pleading for a memorial to the disappeared, the vanished ones ... those who were unrecognizable and unsung. The ones earth had eaten, as if her appetite were insatiable; as if benign nature had developed a carnal hunger, a yawning mouth, a sinkhole capable of swallowing, forever, one-third of those who had fallen. A messy burial without a funeral, without even a pause in the frantic slaughter.'
