In Honour Of Their Memory

Today is Remembrance Day in Canada, and Armistice Day and Veterans Day elsewhere. On this date in 1918, the guns of the Great War fell silent across Europe. It is a day of commemoration for the fallen of war.

These photographs are from last year in my photoblog, taken at the National War Memorial here in Ottawa, where today a national service will take place.

The ceremony itself begins with the march in of the veterans, led by the pipes and drums.

After the ceremony is done, the pipes and drums lead the march past.

Veterans are right behind.

It also includes active members from each branch of the Canadian Forces.

I close this post with two statues by the same artist, Ruth Abernethy, both larger than life, and both a twin of the other. The first is here in Ottawa, on Green Island where the Rideau River meets the Ottawa River. Lieutenant-Colonel John McCrae was the Canadian soldier, doctor, and poet who wrote the poem In Flanders Fields during the First World War, and would not live to see that war's end.

The other version of the statue is here in his home town- Guelph, in southern Ontario, where it stands outside the city's Civic Museum. In his hand he grips a notebook, with the first words to his most famous poem inscribed on the bronze page. A man whose words have left a lasting impact upon the world.

Paying Final Respects To The Fallen

Later this week sees Remembrance Day. November 11th is also known as Veterans Day or Armistice Day elsewhere, but here in Canada, it is Remembrance Day, a day to pay our respects to those who served in war, and those who died in it.  

These first shots are from several years ago, on a spring day when I visited Beechwood Cemetery, a historic cemetery in Ottawa with the graves of many prominent people, locally and nationally. Two sections of this large property have been set aside as a national military cemetery, and this is one of them, with the tombstones done in the same manner as originally laid out by the Commonwealth War Graves Commission, a legacy of the First World War that carries on its work today.

I attend the national service held at the Canadian War Memorial, which occupies the very heart of Confederation Square. I usually choose a spot ideal for watching the parade past after the ceremony has ended. It begins with bagpipes.

Followed by the veterans- a smaller group by the year.

Active services follow them. A very solemn and moving ceremony, and one that draws out the public each year.

A Wound In The Heart

Today I make use of this blog for photography, and a more somber tone than is usually the case here. Flags at half mast: a sign of mourning and commemoration. This was taken yesterday outside one of the federal office buildings downtown in Ottawa.

 Several days ago it came out in the media. 215 bodies found: children. Buried at the site of a former residential school at Kamloops, B.C.. The residential school system is a dark stain on Canadian history: the taking of generations of indigenous children by the government and put into schools run by the churches. It is a legacy we are still dealing with today, as the last of those schools closed in living memory. Indigenous people and communities still deal with the fallout of trauma, abuse, and neglect. All in a program meant to "get the Indian out of them."

215 innocent children. Taken from families, from what they knew and loved, never to return. It is heartbreaking and infuriating and... the worst part is  that you just know there are more bodies out there. Buried in ummarked graves far from their homes and families. Victims  of a system that strove to stamp out who they are.

Other bloggers have already addressed this. I wasn't sure if I could. I know I don't have the eloquence for it. To call it a tragedy isn't sufficient. Nor are apologies sufficient. Speaking for myself, I  feel ashamed of my country.

So what's to be done? First, those children need to be returned to their homelands to rest among their people. Then every other residential school must be examined. Because there are more graves out there. And those children must be sent home. After that? There were people who knew. And didn't care. People still alive. They must be held to account. This is a terrible wrong that must be made right.

Flags have been at half last for days: one hour for each of these 215. And on Parliament Hill, around and beyond the Centennial Flame, is a growing commemoration. Messages, photos, indigenous items... and toys.... and children's  shoes. I leave the images to say the rest.

Scarce Heard Amid The Guns Below

In Flanders Fields the poppies blow

Between the crosses, row on row

That mark our place; and in the sky

The larks, still bravely singing, fly

Scarce heard amid the guns below.

We are the Dead. Short days ago

We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow, 

Loved and were loved, and now we lie

In Flanders fields.

Take up our quarrel with the foe:

To you from failing hands we throw

The torch; be yours to hold it high.

If ye break faith with us who die

We shall not sleep, though poppies grow

In Flanders fields.

The Canadian soldier, doctor, and poet John McCrae wrote the poem In Flanders Fields during the dark days of World War One. It is among a collection of his poetry published posthumously after he died of pneumonia in January 1918 at Boulogne in France at the front. The poem has endured for a century after its first publication in a magazine in 1915, and has taken on a life of its own around the world as a tribute to the fallen of war.

The Canadian artist Ruth Abernethy created a twin pair of sculptures of McCrae in 2015. One was placed in his childhood home town of Guelph, Ontario. The second was placed on Green Island here in Ottawa, where the Rideau River splits into two branches and tumbles into the Ottawa River. This place already has a number of military monuments, and the placement of McCrae's statue, larger than life and quite life-like and expressive, features the soldier sitting, holding the poem in hand, looking up at the horizon. Poppies are incorporated at the base of the sculpture, touched by red. From time to time I have photographed it, and these shots date from visits made in 2016 and posted to my photoblog at the time. With the centennial of the end of World War One coming tomorrow, it felt fitting to post this here today. Tomorrow at the photoblog I will feature this spot again from a visit made in October, starting off a series about Remembrance Day that will take up the better part of the rest of the month.