I shrugged off my backpack and sat on a nearby bench, drawing in a long breath before taking in my surroundings. The slope I had just climbed was framed with conifers, which followed the path all the way down to the base of the mountain, giving way to the expansive pastures where cows grazed, clanking the enormous bells that hung around their necks. Having just emerged from the silence of the countryside, I was now enveloped by a cacophony of voices, chattering along excitedly in German, French, Spanish, Korean and English. Some sipped tea, others smoked cigarettes, but each seemed united in the fact that they were cherishing this brief break in the morning sunlight before attacking the mountain once more.
I loosened the laces on my hiking boots and wrestled them off my feet, laughing to myself as a thick steam escaped from the tops of them. As I rummaged around in my backpack, trying to find my map, I mentally calculated how much farther I had to walk. “Well I’ve been walking straight uphill for basically three hours,” I reasoned. “I must be at least halfway there.”
That morning I was beginning the Camino de Santiago, a trail that, each year, leads thousands of pilgrims from southern France into the Pyrenees, through northern Spain towards the end point, Santiago de Compostela: roughly 800km away from where I now sat.
The evening before I had boarded a train in Bayonne, France, which had slowly made its way to St. Jean Pied-du-Port, the traditional start point of the “French Way” of the Camino. The train had snaked southward through lush valleys and quaint villages, passing by fly fishermen on placid rivers and past ancient monasteries perched on jagged mountains. On that small train I had sat beside an Englishman named Jim, who was beginning his second trek onto the Camino, and across from Jorge, a Frenchman born to Spanish parents who had fled Spain during the Civil War in the 1930s. However, I would not meet either of them until days later, and none of us made eye contact or spoke a word to each other for the entire three-hour journey to St. Jean.
And so, after a good night’s sleep at Maison Itzalpea in St-Jean, I had trudged out of the village in the early morning sunlight, taking my first steps of a journey that would extend about 475km on foot, taking the better part of May to complete. A mere forty-eight hours prior, I had vacated what had been my home for three months in Arras, and now I found myself 1000km south, climbing a slope into the Pyrenees Mountains. Having finally fished my map out of my bag, I realized that I was nowhere near halfway to the first stop of my pilgrimage. In fact, now sitting in Orison, France, I was barely a third of the way to my destination for the day.
Looking back on it now, I am very thankful that I was as fresh and ambitious as I was that first day. Surprisingly, for that time of day, I was also in a tremendously good mood. Those 28 or so kilometers between St. Jean and Roncesvalles, Spain, contain the roughest terrain of the whole Camino, guiding pilgrims through mountain passes for most of the trek, and then sharply dropping off on the other side. My mood and general exuberance carried me most of the day, buoyed by the pastoral beauty of the cattle and horses grazing on the rolling hills and the spectacular views from mountainside vistas.
Of course, my mood couldn’t do all the work. My body bore the stress of the steep inclines and would later feel the punishment of the constant drag and pull of my heavy backpack as I trodded over the kilometers. The enthusiasm I felt that morning reminded me of many other instances in my life where I had taken on a new challenge or headed down a new proverbial path. Many times I have undertaken new commitments to growth in many facets of my life, be they relational, physical, academic, intellectual, spiritual, etc., and often I face these tasks with a new outlook, attitude and ambition. Overtime, however, that novelty wears off. Blisters form in relationships. Excessive ambition gives way to lethargy and avoidance. People irritate me with their quirks and I allow my attitude or temperament to change. Negativity oh-so gradually slips in, growing without me noticing, all the while bringing me further and further from where I want and need to be.
This type of gradual slippery slope, caused by passive inaction or indifference, can only be reversed by renewed resolve to change and growth: a new commitment to take back what we have lost, step-by-step. Only this time, we have to fight and claw just to get back to our starting point, to override what we have become desensitized to, to lose the biases that our own passivity has allowed us to build up. Only enduring a steep, painful climb, persevering through bumps and bruises, and standing back up every time we fall will allow us to progress.
On this day, however, my literal climb is still new and fresh to me; my major challenges and bumps in the road were still far in the distance. I am astonished by the powerful winds that whip around the tops of the hills and mountains over the course of the day. I am surprised by a hillside full of daisies, (which always remind me of my Mom) this early in the spring. I am shocked when the descent from the mountain is actually much more difficult than parts of the climb. Overall, it is a day filled with new experiences and pleasant surprises. At some point during the climb, I cross the border into Spain, and as 300 or so pilgrims descend out of the mountains and invade Roncesvalles (a village with about 30 residents) I am all too happy to find a bed, to shower the stress out of my shoulders and rush peacefully into sleep. And there was evening, and there was morning. The first day.
Saturday, October 15, 2011
Thursday, May 12, 2011
The Vimy Shuffle - Part IX
Once we hit April in Arras, time started to fly by, partly because most of us were in the process of doing exchanges to either Vimy or BH. This gave us each the opportunity to spend a few days working at the other site and to learn more about the history there while honing our guide skillz. Meanwhile, the sites were getting busier, and special events throughout the month contributed to the quickening pace of our session.
The April 9th ceremony at Vimy (the 94th anniversary of the battle) was an especially poignant event, with delegates from the local, national and international political community present, as well as Canadian officials, soldiers and visitors. While each of us had über-important duties for the day (such as pointing at the parking lot when cars drove up, taking wreaths from one vehicle and placing them in another, or telling older women that they weren't allow to lean on the monument), special props are certainly due to both Lisette, who gave a moving speech about her great-grandfather's involvement in the war, and Sahar, who sang O Canada and La Marseillaise so amazingly well that she was invited to sing them again two weeks later, this time at a preliminary World Hockey Championship game between Canada and France in Paris. Regardless of our special job that day, (including that of Laura and Kariane, our two lone guides at BH) we took advantage of the fact that everyone was, for once, in town, and headed out that evenings for dinner and some drinks. As per usual, the drinking delved to different depths for different individuals, and the night ended with me being confronted by an angry Acadian, several items being mysteriously hidden around Vauban, and a particularly memorable walk down Maple Lane for me the next day.
Over the course of our three months in Arras, many of us took the opportunity to use Northern France for a jump-off point to visit other European destinations. A lot of us explored more of France, some made it as far as Morocco, and two even made it to the Royal Wedding in London. Still more of us used up several days off drinking at The Great Canadian Pub in Paris (once with special guests MJ and Thomas), although the Pub itself was met with varying degrees of satisfaction. (Although I'm sure everyone would agree that any night someone doesn't follow through on their threats to jump into the Seine is probably a good night).
In early April, following up on the jaunt Sahar and I took up to Mont St-Michel, I flew to Lisbon, Portugal to meet up with John Thomson, a friend that Meghan and I had met on our whirlwind Eurotrip in 2007. During our trek through Eastern Europe, and hazy after a night-long train ride through Serbia and Bulgaria, Meghan and I were astonished to hear someone (namely John and his travel mate, Richard) speaking English in, of all places, the Sophia train station. They joined us for lunch, we mocked the Bulgarian menu mercilessly, and the rest is history. (And could certainly warrant a blog post of its own). Anyway, upon my arrival in Lisbon, John guided me through the streets of the city, stopping at mny of the requisite tourist and historic locales as we went. Over the course of my two-days in Lisbon, we visited many sites, including (but not limited to) Castelo de São Jorge, an eleventh-century castle that figures into much of Lisbon's history, the Monument of the Discoveries, dedicated to Portugal's rich past of discovery and conquest, and Cabo da Roca, the westernmost point in continental Europe. It was such a thorough tour that at one point I had to buy new €12 shoes at a Chinese corner store after tripping over my own feet and busting up the sandals I was wearing. After a great but exhausting weekend with John, his Mom cooked us a Sunday evening dinner, and I gunned it to the airport in order to get back to Arras in time for work the next morning.
In addition to watching time speed by, we were also becoming adept at two very important occurances at Vimy and BH: delaing with stupid questions and telling people to stop doing stupid things. By this point we were all used to the usual "Are you actually Canadian?", "Who won the war?" and (by far the most common) "Where were the toilets?" kind of questions, but there were also some astoundingly ridiculous queries made over the course of our three months. My favorites:
(noticing the number of Indian gravestones in one of the Commonwealth Cemeteries on-site) "So, where were all the Indians from?",
"Did all lieutenant-colonels have to be left-handed?",
"So these craters were caused by glacial retreat, right?",
(pointing at the figure of Canada on the monument) "Is that Jesus?",
"What was going on in South America at this point in time?",
and, my favourite,
(pointing at the pictures of all the guides in the Visitor's Centre) "Are those all the people who died here?"
Unfortunately, the ridiculousness at the sites was not isolated to questions, and that meant that a large part of our duties included yelling at people who were being morons on-site. Again, the usual biker or unleashed dog is to be expected, but I would say about 75% of my time on the monument was spent dissuading people from inappropriately posing with the figure of the mourning woman. Then there were people like the parents who would give plastic AK-47s to their kids and get them to run around the trenches shooting at each other. Or the bus driver who did do doughnuts around the parking lot trying to dislodge a sneaker from the roof of his bus, while the kids from his bus rans around the parking lot and the bus. (He got such a stern talking to that I almost made him cry).
But just in time to serve as a relief for all the yelling and tears, the canival came to Arras! Now, I am not much of a carnival type of person, but I'll have to say that one night with my favourite Canadians in France, a couple beer, cotton candy, bumper cars and walking around in giant inflatable balls on water goes a long way to help forget even the worst Sunday at Vimy.
Then, all of a sudden it was Easter. And then it was ANZAC Day. And then Kariane got conjunctivitis. And then, as suddenly as it began, the session was over. Fourteen new guides invaded the sites and took away my beloved Galaxy while we finished out Lame Duck Week while the newbies were getting fully trained and ready to take the reins. While our last day wasn't until Monday, May 2nd, the wheels started to come off the Saturday previous, when a thunderstorm ended our tour day early, and we all got a little hyper. The next day was a typical Sunday, with French people just crawling all over the place (I had to tell people on an unprecedented five occasions to get down from the Mourning Woman, and then tell two teenagers to 'degage' themselves from the site, after I caught them throwing rocks at the kiosk). On Monday, Vimy had a full staff of eighteen, with the newbies shadowing the pros as we went into the tunnels once last time. That night Vauban had one of its most memorable parties of the session (other honourable mentions include Valentine's Day, St. Patrick's Day, Easter and that random night with the blue-haired pansexual and native headress), this time in the basement, theoretically to cut down on the mess made in the house. André and Kristie showed up, and Arlene even put in a strong performance during our Vimy-BH version of King's Cup. A good night was had by all, although my memories of later in the night are about as blurry as Kariane's photos.
Unfortunately, the next morning I found that my theory about the basement party to mess ratio was invalid, and I was left holding the bag... actually, 12 garbage bags full of cans and bottles and food and garbage. Luckily I had the time to waste given that my train was at 12:10, while pretty much everyone else had flown the coop, and were already on their way to Greece, Portugal, Corsica, etc. Of course, I was only too happy to help my fellow co-workers out, and hardly even cursed once when I woke up and realized that every one of my roommates had ignored even the mildly threatening email André had sent regarding our final clean-up.
I was the last to leave Vauban, and as I walked through the streets of Arras for the last time, now carrying my backpack with the customary Canada flag sewn onto it, I had a renewed (or 'renaissance' à la Reta) perspective on why Canadians like being identified as such in Europe. Over the course of the session we had certainly learned a lot about the sacrifices of Canadians on those fields in Europe, and setting aside the multitude of half-baked factors that led to the First World War, Canada punched far above its weight in the European theatre, in war that certainly wasn't their own. At St-Julien, Vimy, Passchendaele, Canal du Nord, during the last 100 days, etc. the 600,000 who served in the Canadian Corps had earned respect for a country that was only 50 years old and, a few years earlier, many had never even heard of. And more than a million Canadians would do it all again less than 25 years later. While the reasoning and justification for these conflicts remain a dicey issue in a lot of respects, the nobility with which these men and women signed up and served is not to be underscored. Along with everything else, it was the generations of Canadians that preceded ours that earned, through their service and sacrifice, the right for Canadians to walk across Europe with our flag proudly sewn on our backpack.
However, three months at Vimy also changed my perspective on war in general. The senselessness that led to the slaughter of a generation of young men and the staggering loss for all involved is so heartbreakingly palpable at Vimy, BH and at all the memorials, battle sites and cemeteries that we visited over the course of our three months in France. After the session, I could certainly go on about the war for hours, but I will instead simply sum up the futility of that war with this Longfellow quote: 'If we could read the secret history of our enemies, we should find in each man's life sorrow and suffering enough to disarm all hostility.' Every man in those trenches and tunnels was a victim of a world bound by oligarchs and greed. Every one of them deserved better.
And while back home we often speak of Vimy as a moment of pride for Canadians; a major stepping-stone to nationhood, I see it now more as a monument to a necessary evil. A memorial for 3,598 Canadians who fell in that field. For 11,285 who fell in France without a trace. For 67,000 fallen over the four years of war. For 600,000 who, even if they survived, were never the same again, and for their countless loved ones, families, communities, villages and towns who suffered equally through that four years and beyond. Vimy Ridge and the mournful caribou at BH were also most certainly erected as hopeful beacons for peace.
Meanwhile, as I left Arras for Paris via train, I tried to switch gears. The journey I was about to embark on would have very little to do with pride, nationalism and war, and a lot more to do with humility, universalism and peace.
The April 9th ceremony at Vimy (the 94th anniversary of the battle) was an especially poignant event, with delegates from the local, national and international political community present, as well as Canadian officials, soldiers and visitors. While each of us had über-important duties for the day (such as pointing at the parking lot when cars drove up, taking wreaths from one vehicle and placing them in another, or telling older women that they weren't allow to lean on the monument), special props are certainly due to both Lisette, who gave a moving speech about her great-grandfather's involvement in the war, and Sahar, who sang O Canada and La Marseillaise so amazingly well that she was invited to sing them again two weeks later, this time at a preliminary World Hockey Championship game between Canada and France in Paris. Regardless of our special job that day, (including that of Laura and Kariane, our two lone guides at BH) we took advantage of the fact that everyone was, for once, in town, and headed out that evenings for dinner and some drinks. As per usual, the drinking delved to different depths for different individuals, and the night ended with me being confronted by an angry Acadian, several items being mysteriously hidden around Vauban, and a particularly memorable walk down Maple Lane for me the next day.
Over the course of our three months in Arras, many of us took the opportunity to use Northern France for a jump-off point to visit other European destinations. A lot of us explored more of France, some made it as far as Morocco, and two even made it to the Royal Wedding in London. Still more of us used up several days off drinking at The Great Canadian Pub in Paris (once with special guests MJ and Thomas), although the Pub itself was met with varying degrees of satisfaction. (Although I'm sure everyone would agree that any night someone doesn't follow through on their threats to jump into the Seine is probably a good night).
In early April, following up on the jaunt Sahar and I took up to Mont St-Michel, I flew to Lisbon, Portugal to meet up with John Thomson, a friend that Meghan and I had met on our whirlwind Eurotrip in 2007. During our trek through Eastern Europe, and hazy after a night-long train ride through Serbia and Bulgaria, Meghan and I were astonished to hear someone (namely John and his travel mate, Richard) speaking English in, of all places, the Sophia train station. They joined us for lunch, we mocked the Bulgarian menu mercilessly, and the rest is history. (And could certainly warrant a blog post of its own). Anyway, upon my arrival in Lisbon, John guided me through the streets of the city, stopping at mny of the requisite tourist and historic locales as we went. Over the course of my two-days in Lisbon, we visited many sites, including (but not limited to) Castelo de São Jorge, an eleventh-century castle that figures into much of Lisbon's history, the Monument of the Discoveries, dedicated to Portugal's rich past of discovery and conquest, and Cabo da Roca, the westernmost point in continental Europe. It was such a thorough tour that at one point I had to buy new €12 shoes at a Chinese corner store after tripping over my own feet and busting up the sandals I was wearing. After a great but exhausting weekend with John, his Mom cooked us a Sunday evening dinner, and I gunned it to the airport in order to get back to Arras in time for work the next morning.
In addition to watching time speed by, we were also becoming adept at two very important occurances at Vimy and BH: delaing with stupid questions and telling people to stop doing stupid things. By this point we were all used to the usual "Are you actually Canadian?", "Who won the war?" and (by far the most common) "Where were the toilets?" kind of questions, but there were also some astoundingly ridiculous queries made over the course of our three months. My favorites:
(noticing the number of Indian gravestones in one of the Commonwealth Cemeteries on-site) "So, where were all the Indians from?",
"Did all lieutenant-colonels have to be left-handed?",
"So these craters were caused by glacial retreat, right?",
(pointing at the figure of Canada on the monument) "Is that Jesus?",
"What was going on in South America at this point in time?",
and, my favourite,
(pointing at the pictures of all the guides in the Visitor's Centre) "Are those all the people who died here?"
Unfortunately, the ridiculousness at the sites was not isolated to questions, and that meant that a large part of our duties included yelling at people who were being morons on-site. Again, the usual biker or unleashed dog is to be expected, but I would say about 75% of my time on the monument was spent dissuading people from inappropriately posing with the figure of the mourning woman. Then there were people like the parents who would give plastic AK-47s to their kids and get them to run around the trenches shooting at each other. Or the bus driver who did do doughnuts around the parking lot trying to dislodge a sneaker from the roof of his bus, while the kids from his bus rans around the parking lot and the bus. (He got such a stern talking to that I almost made him cry).
But just in time to serve as a relief for all the yelling and tears, the canival came to Arras! Now, I am not much of a carnival type of person, but I'll have to say that one night with my favourite Canadians in France, a couple beer, cotton candy, bumper cars and walking around in giant inflatable balls on water goes a long way to help forget even the worst Sunday at Vimy.
Then, all of a sudden it was Easter. And then it was ANZAC Day. And then Kariane got conjunctivitis. And then, as suddenly as it began, the session was over. Fourteen new guides invaded the sites and took away my beloved Galaxy while we finished out Lame Duck Week while the newbies were getting fully trained and ready to take the reins. While our last day wasn't until Monday, May 2nd, the wheels started to come off the Saturday previous, when a thunderstorm ended our tour day early, and we all got a little hyper. The next day was a typical Sunday, with French people just crawling all over the place (I had to tell people on an unprecedented five occasions to get down from the Mourning Woman, and then tell two teenagers to 'degage' themselves from the site, after I caught them throwing rocks at the kiosk). On Monday, Vimy had a full staff of eighteen, with the newbies shadowing the pros as we went into the tunnels once last time. That night Vauban had one of its most memorable parties of the session (other honourable mentions include Valentine's Day, St. Patrick's Day, Easter and that random night with the blue-haired pansexual and native headress), this time in the basement, theoretically to cut down on the mess made in the house. André and Kristie showed up, and Arlene even put in a strong performance during our Vimy-BH version of King's Cup. A good night was had by all, although my memories of later in the night are about as blurry as Kariane's photos.
Unfortunately, the next morning I found that my theory about the basement party to mess ratio was invalid, and I was left holding the bag... actually, 12 garbage bags full of cans and bottles and food and garbage. Luckily I had the time to waste given that my train was at 12:10, while pretty much everyone else had flown the coop, and were already on their way to Greece, Portugal, Corsica, etc. Of course, I was only too happy to help my fellow co-workers out, and hardly even cursed once when I woke up and realized that every one of my roommates had ignored even the mildly threatening email André had sent regarding our final clean-up.
I was the last to leave Vauban, and as I walked through the streets of Arras for the last time, now carrying my backpack with the customary Canada flag sewn onto it, I had a renewed (or 'renaissance' à la Reta) perspective on why Canadians like being identified as such in Europe. Over the course of the session we had certainly learned a lot about the sacrifices of Canadians on those fields in Europe, and setting aside the multitude of half-baked factors that led to the First World War, Canada punched far above its weight in the European theatre, in war that certainly wasn't their own. At St-Julien, Vimy, Passchendaele, Canal du Nord, during the last 100 days, etc. the 600,000 who served in the Canadian Corps had earned respect for a country that was only 50 years old and, a few years earlier, many had never even heard of. And more than a million Canadians would do it all again less than 25 years later. While the reasoning and justification for these conflicts remain a dicey issue in a lot of respects, the nobility with which these men and women signed up and served is not to be underscored. Along with everything else, it was the generations of Canadians that preceded ours that earned, through their service and sacrifice, the right for Canadians to walk across Europe with our flag proudly sewn on our backpack.
However, three months at Vimy also changed my perspective on war in general. The senselessness that led to the slaughter of a generation of young men and the staggering loss for all involved is so heartbreakingly palpable at Vimy, BH and at all the memorials, battle sites and cemeteries that we visited over the course of our three months in France. After the session, I could certainly go on about the war for hours, but I will instead simply sum up the futility of that war with this Longfellow quote: 'If we could read the secret history of our enemies, we should find in each man's life sorrow and suffering enough to disarm all hostility.' Every man in those trenches and tunnels was a victim of a world bound by oligarchs and greed. Every one of them deserved better.
And while back home we often speak of Vimy as a moment of pride for Canadians; a major stepping-stone to nationhood, I see it now more as a monument to a necessary evil. A memorial for 3,598 Canadians who fell in that field. For 11,285 who fell in France without a trace. For 67,000 fallen over the four years of war. For 600,000 who, even if they survived, were never the same again, and for their countless loved ones, families, communities, villages and towns who suffered equally through that four years and beyond. Vimy Ridge and the mournful caribou at BH were also most certainly erected as hopeful beacons for peace.
Meanwhile, as I left Arras for Paris via train, I tried to switch gears. The journey I was about to embark on would have very little to do with pride, nationalism and war, and a lot more to do with humility, universalism and peace.
Tuesday, March 29, 2011
The Vimy Shuffle - Part VIII
It seems unlikely that I will ever take a train without being reminded of Meghan and our trip around Europe in 2007 (http://on.fb.me/gs2VNP), that is, of course, unless we're talking about a VIA Rail trip, which more just reminds me of some combination of a cattle cart on the Oregon Trail and Chinese water torture. My trip with Sahar to Mont St-Michel was no different. From Arras, our train took us west through the north of France to the city of Rennes, where we boarded a bus for Pontorson. From there, a short transit bus ride took us towards our final destination. I was pretty interested to see the old fortified city for myself, but as the bus wound down the country roads near the French coast, I realized that I, after three months away from PEI, was actually excited just to see the ocean.
Mont St-Michel rises like a fairy tale from the waters just off northern France. The site of l'Abbaye St-Michel since the 8th century, it is built on a peninsula that protrudes about a kilometer from the mainland, connected only by a narrow causeway when the tide is high. At the top of the imposing mount stands a church that was constructed in the 11th and 12th centuries, and then partially re-configured in the 15th century, leading to a combination of Romanesque and Gothic architecture. From there, a fortified city (current population of less than 50) spirals all the way down to the base of Mont St-Michel where, today, millions of visitors flock every year.
Sahar and I blended in well with the tourists that bound the streets when we arrived, as we settled into the business of taking pictures of every corner and angle that looked even halfway interesting. As is true any such attraction, the passageways of Mont St-Michel have become over-run with tacky souvenir shops stocked with the usual cliché fare. But once you make your way further up and out of the fray, the town offers spectacular views of both itself and of the surrounding tidal flats and waterways. After clambering up and down stairs for an hour or two, we headed down to walk around the island itself, renowned for its merciless tide. They say the tides here race to fill the void left in their departure like "galloping horses", which, at 14 meters is no match for Fundy's 17 meter tidal boar, but is still pretty frightening. Sahar and I didn't end up getting swallowed up in the tide, but we did get pretty muddy, which I'm sure did not impress the staff at the restaurant we went into immediately afterwards.
After dark, we headed off on foot in search of our chambre d'hôte, taking the opportunity to see Mont St-Michel lit up at night. About six kilometres later we stumbled into 'la Bastide du Moulin' and claimed our beds for the night. As far as I can recall, this was my first bed and breakfast experience, (although some hostels I've been to may technically be considered B&Bs) and it more than exceeded any expectations I may have had. Our room had a four-post bed and a double bed on the loft, as well as a newly renovated bathroom and a window/door that led into the backyard. Exhausted, we took a few moments to gush over the place before passing out for a solid eight hours of sleep.
After breakfast we headed back on foot towards Mont St-Michel to see the museum, but were also able to catch part of Mass in the ancient church, celebrated with the monks and nuns who still live in the monastery there. From there we continued back through the streets, where Sahar bought a few of the aforementioned cliché trinkets, and we headed back the six kilometers (that's 18km total, if you're keeping track) to our chambre d'hôte to retrieve our bags and to catch the bus back into Pontorson.
Fast-forward to about six hours and a couple broken down trains later, and Sahar and I are sitting stranded in a Paris train station, still many miles away from Arras, with Monday morning and another day at work ticking ever-closer. Tired from a long day of sight-seeing and traveling, we shuffled into the long line-up where all the passengers whose journeys had been disrupted now stood. Given my past dealings with VIA Rail, Air Canada and the like, I have come to accept such a low level of customer service that I assumed what awaited us at the front of the line was a lengthy argument, resulting in us getting a voucher or some other meaningless coupon that did nothing to resolve the predicament we were in. Fortunately, they do things differently in France. While in line, we were given a free boxed lunch which included a letter of apology from SNCF (Société nationale des chemins de fer français). However, we didn't have time to eat it, because the line moved very quickly, and when we reached the front of the line, we were dealt with efficiently and professionally. As the last train for Arras had already left, he offered us train tickets the following morning so that we would get back in time for work, and a complimentary stay at a hotel next to Paris Nord train station. And we didn't even have to yell or anything.
As the train schedule was fairly extensively messed up by whatever was going wrong with the engines or signals or whatever in France that day, it turned out that about 35 of us were all staying at the same hotel. We were given instructions on how to get to the hotel and then our convoy was set loose on Paris, rolling through train and metro stations like a well-behaved street gang with well-appointed luggage sets. When we came to the RER (Réseau Express Régional) turnstiles, each person politely held the door for the next, chivalrously enabling them to jump the fare while the rest of the group patiently waited for everyone to get through. When we reached Paris Nord, our posse took to the streets, and people stopped or slowed their cars at the sight of us, probably wondering what kind of protest we were mounting at one in the morning. After walking for about a kilometer (stopping occasionally so stragglers and those caught at crosswalk lights could catch up) we arrived at our hotel... or so we thought. But we were turned away and told that the hotel we were actually looking for was ten minutes in the opposite direction. And so we bravely spilled onto the streets of Paris again. We arrived at our hotel and crawled into bed with about 5 hours to go before we had to be back up at Paris Nord. After walking about 14,000 kilometers that day we were very tired and drifted quickly off to sleep.
In the morning we got a free breakfast along with our free hotel room, both of which were actually pretty good (especially considering the price) and made our way back to the train station. After a mishap where Sahar nearly got blasted in the face with a water hose by city workers, we got on the train. As our tickets were actually for the night before, we had not been assigned new seats and so we decided to just take a seat in 1st Class and see where that got us. When the ticket guy asked for my ticket, I silently handed it to him, again, expecting to be land-basted again for having the audacity to sit with my social betters, here in my light hikers and jeans.
"Did they put you up in hotel last night as well?"
I nodded.
"Very good." he said, as he handed my ticket back and continued up the aisle.
What a country.
Mont St-Michel rises like a fairy tale from the waters just off northern France. The site of l'Abbaye St-Michel since the 8th century, it is built on a peninsula that protrudes about a kilometer from the mainland, connected only by a narrow causeway when the tide is high. At the top of the imposing mount stands a church that was constructed in the 11th and 12th centuries, and then partially re-configured in the 15th century, leading to a combination of Romanesque and Gothic architecture. From there, a fortified city (current population of less than 50) spirals all the way down to the base of Mont St-Michel where, today, millions of visitors flock every year.
Sahar and I blended in well with the tourists that bound the streets when we arrived, as we settled into the business of taking pictures of every corner and angle that looked even halfway interesting. As is true any such attraction, the passageways of Mont St-Michel have become over-run with tacky souvenir shops stocked with the usual cliché fare. But once you make your way further up and out of the fray, the town offers spectacular views of both itself and of the surrounding tidal flats and waterways. After clambering up and down stairs for an hour or two, we headed down to walk around the island itself, renowned for its merciless tide. They say the tides here race to fill the void left in their departure like "galloping horses", which, at 14 meters is no match for Fundy's 17 meter tidal boar, but is still pretty frightening. Sahar and I didn't end up getting swallowed up in the tide, but we did get pretty muddy, which I'm sure did not impress the staff at the restaurant we went into immediately afterwards.
After dark, we headed off on foot in search of our chambre d'hôte, taking the opportunity to see Mont St-Michel lit up at night. About six kilometres later we stumbled into 'la Bastide du Moulin' and claimed our beds for the night. As far as I can recall, this was my first bed and breakfast experience, (although some hostels I've been to may technically be considered B&Bs) and it more than exceeded any expectations I may have had. Our room had a four-post bed and a double bed on the loft, as well as a newly renovated bathroom and a window/door that led into the backyard. Exhausted, we took a few moments to gush over the place before passing out for a solid eight hours of sleep.
After breakfast we headed back on foot towards Mont St-Michel to see the museum, but were also able to catch part of Mass in the ancient church, celebrated with the monks and nuns who still live in the monastery there. From there we continued back through the streets, where Sahar bought a few of the aforementioned cliché trinkets, and we headed back the six kilometers (that's 18km total, if you're keeping track) to our chambre d'hôte to retrieve our bags and to catch the bus back into Pontorson.
Fast-forward to about six hours and a couple broken down trains later, and Sahar and I are sitting stranded in a Paris train station, still many miles away from Arras, with Monday morning and another day at work ticking ever-closer. Tired from a long day of sight-seeing and traveling, we shuffled into the long line-up where all the passengers whose journeys had been disrupted now stood. Given my past dealings with VIA Rail, Air Canada and the like, I have come to accept such a low level of customer service that I assumed what awaited us at the front of the line was a lengthy argument, resulting in us getting a voucher or some other meaningless coupon that did nothing to resolve the predicament we were in. Fortunately, they do things differently in France. While in line, we were given a free boxed lunch which included a letter of apology from SNCF (Société nationale des chemins de fer français). However, we didn't have time to eat it, because the line moved very quickly, and when we reached the front of the line, we were dealt with efficiently and professionally. As the last train for Arras had already left, he offered us train tickets the following morning so that we would get back in time for work, and a complimentary stay at a hotel next to Paris Nord train station. And we didn't even have to yell or anything.
As the train schedule was fairly extensively messed up by whatever was going wrong with the engines or signals or whatever in France that day, it turned out that about 35 of us were all staying at the same hotel. We were given instructions on how to get to the hotel and then our convoy was set loose on Paris, rolling through train and metro stations like a well-behaved street gang with well-appointed luggage sets. When we came to the RER (Réseau Express Régional) turnstiles, each person politely held the door for the next, chivalrously enabling them to jump the fare while the rest of the group patiently waited for everyone to get through. When we reached Paris Nord, our posse took to the streets, and people stopped or slowed their cars at the sight of us, probably wondering what kind of protest we were mounting at one in the morning. After walking for about a kilometer (stopping occasionally so stragglers and those caught at crosswalk lights could catch up) we arrived at our hotel... or so we thought. But we were turned away and told that the hotel we were actually looking for was ten minutes in the opposite direction. And so we bravely spilled onto the streets of Paris again. We arrived at our hotel and crawled into bed with about 5 hours to go before we had to be back up at Paris Nord. After walking about 14,000 kilometers that day we were very tired and drifted quickly off to sleep.
In the morning we got a free breakfast along with our free hotel room, both of which were actually pretty good (especially considering the price) and made our way back to the train station. After a mishap where Sahar nearly got blasted in the face with a water hose by city workers, we got on the train. As our tickets were actually for the night before, we had not been assigned new seats and so we decided to just take a seat in 1st Class and see where that got us. When the ticket guy asked for my ticket, I silently handed it to him, again, expecting to be land-basted again for having the audacity to sit with my social betters, here in my light hikers and jeans.
"Did they put you up in hotel last night as well?"
I nodded.
"Very good." he said, as he handed my ticket back and continued up the aisle.
What a country.
Wednesday, March 23, 2011
The Vimy Shuffle - Part VII
Every evening since July 2nd, 1928, a Last Post ceremony has taken place at the Menin Gate, a First World Memorial standing at the entrance to the city of Ypres, Belgium. Containing the names of 54,896 men, it commemorates men of the British Empire who fell during the Great War who have no known grave, including 6,983 Canadians. On March 4th, we had the opportunity to take part in the ceremony and lay a wreath in remembrance of the men commemorated at the gate. Also present were 200+ members of the London Regiment, who marched in full procession under the gate to the beat of drums and the drone of bagpipes.
Two days later, the same regiment visited us at Vimy, getting the full tour of the tunnels and trenches before changing into full parade dress for a Drumhead Ceremony at the Memorial. After giving all the Regiment a brief 5-minute crash course on the Monument, I stepped back to watch as they took time to commemorate the history of the battle and the war, but also to highlight the on-going importance of service and sacrifice, a concept which struck a chord with me. In contextualizing the First World War, it is often difficult to find meaning or sense in the ill-conceived notions that led to war, but on the individual level, the idea of service and sacrifice is one that I believe permeates to all facets of society.
After spending a very busy day with the Regiment and at the site, a few of us decided to go out for dinner, and then took the opportunity to visit Vimy at night and to see the Monument lit up by lights that were, apparently, designed by a Canadian theatre company. Impressive in any light and at any time of day, the dramatic effect of lights provided yet another perspective by which to view the Memorial.
The following week, which took us into Canadian March Break territory, was also the beginning of Lent meaning Pancake Tuesday and Ash Wednesday, and the end of swearing and chocolate consumption for me. On Tuesday we had a feast of pancakes before heading out and having a few drinks to properly celebrate Mardi Gras, France-style. While the next day was not awfully rough, I was charged with the task of waiting for waiting for a new internet box from our provider (which took most of the day) and then setting it up (which was not as easy as it may sound) and then driving one of our cars to some random garage to get a headlight changed. By the end of the day, my Lenten swear jar tally stood at $11.
On the morning of March 17th, 2011, while across the ocean Canadians were just beginning their day, one of our Canadian soldiers of the Great War was laid to rest, nearly one hundred years after falling on the battlefields of the Great War. The somber ceremony at Pozières, shrouded in a morning fog that clung to the thousands of headstones at Pozieres Cemetery, was the second funeral that took place that week, the first honouring another soldier, identified as Private Thomas Lawless, who was laid to rest near Vimy on March 15th. For all of us guides who were able to attend, and I am sure the same was true for all Canadians in attendance, it brought home the importance of remembrance and of honouring the generations that have gone before us, forging a path through far rougher terrain than we have tread. It was certainly a once in a lifetime experience, and not one I will soon forget.
After participating in both funerals that week, the Loyal Edmonton Regiment had gotten well-acquainted with our staff, and so that night (St. Patrick's Day for those of you playing the home game) 30+ Canadian soldiers and 14 Canadian guides congregated at "The Irish" in Arras to properly celebrate the memory of Ireland's most famous alcoholic and Saint. While latter parts of the night became fuzzy to various people for various reasons, most agree that a good night was had by all, and that the gusto with which 'Barrett's Privateers' and 'O Canada' were sung was bested only in their frequency and volume. Understandably enough, guides and soldiers alike were in slightly less fine form when the Edmonton Regiment showed up for their tour at Vimy the following morning.
Canadian March Break translated into a slew of tours for Canadian school groups and tours over the course of the week, and by Saturday, after about 50 or so tours and about 4 billion photos taken by Canadian students, we were well-prepared for a break. After work, five co-workers (Sahar, Maxine, Colin, Marc and Lauren) and I headed for Paris for a night of unwinding. The Great Canadian Pub, located in the Latin Quarter just south of Notre Dame, was my final destination, providing one or two Moosehead beer and a much-needed Leafs-Bruins tilt to ease the lack of Canadian beer and NHL in my life in Arras. The next day necessitated another trip the the Pub, this time for a bacon-saturated breakfast, before heading back to the streets for a lazy sunny Sunday around the streets and riverside of Paris.
Our second round of March Break groups showed up in full-force Monday, with groups of hundreds of Canadians anxious to take another billion or so pictures of tunnel walls and what-not at Vimy. On Tuesday, fresh from the snowbanks of PEI, 23 Colonel Gray students showed up at our front door, floored by the sight of the Vimy Monument and site, but equally stunned by the sight of green grass, sprouting trees and daffodils that are exploding from the ground at an alarming pace. Indeed Spring has struck Northern France, with double-digit and sunny days dominating the forecast for the past week. Many of the guides have ditched their jackets and have taken to wearing only their shirts (most notably of which is Riggs, who is already sporting a painful sunburn). As if by clockwork, a package sent by my parents and aunt sent on February 7th (when it was still quite frigid) arrived today, complete with my gloves and a pair of new mittens. Such is life.
Two days later, the same regiment visited us at Vimy, getting the full tour of the tunnels and trenches before changing into full parade dress for a Drumhead Ceremony at the Memorial. After giving all the Regiment a brief 5-minute crash course on the Monument, I stepped back to watch as they took time to commemorate the history of the battle and the war, but also to highlight the on-going importance of service and sacrifice, a concept which struck a chord with me. In contextualizing the First World War, it is often difficult to find meaning or sense in the ill-conceived notions that led to war, but on the individual level, the idea of service and sacrifice is one that I believe permeates to all facets of society.
After spending a very busy day with the Regiment and at the site, a few of us decided to go out for dinner, and then took the opportunity to visit Vimy at night and to see the Monument lit up by lights that were, apparently, designed by a Canadian theatre company. Impressive in any light and at any time of day, the dramatic effect of lights provided yet another perspective by which to view the Memorial.
The following week, which took us into Canadian March Break territory, was also the beginning of Lent meaning Pancake Tuesday and Ash Wednesday, and the end of swearing and chocolate consumption for me. On Tuesday we had a feast of pancakes before heading out and having a few drinks to properly celebrate Mardi Gras, France-style. While the next day was not awfully rough, I was charged with the task of waiting for waiting for a new internet box from our provider (which took most of the day) and then setting it up (which was not as easy as it may sound) and then driving one of our cars to some random garage to get a headlight changed. By the end of the day, my Lenten swear jar tally stood at $11.
On the morning of March 17th, 2011, while across the ocean Canadians were just beginning their day, one of our Canadian soldiers of the Great War was laid to rest, nearly one hundred years after falling on the battlefields of the Great War. The somber ceremony at Pozières, shrouded in a morning fog that clung to the thousands of headstones at Pozieres Cemetery, was the second funeral that took place that week, the first honouring another soldier, identified as Private Thomas Lawless, who was laid to rest near Vimy on March 15th. For all of us guides who were able to attend, and I am sure the same was true for all Canadians in attendance, it brought home the importance of remembrance and of honouring the generations that have gone before us, forging a path through far rougher terrain than we have tread. It was certainly a once in a lifetime experience, and not one I will soon forget.
After participating in both funerals that week, the Loyal Edmonton Regiment had gotten well-acquainted with our staff, and so that night (St. Patrick's Day for those of you playing the home game) 30+ Canadian soldiers and 14 Canadian guides congregated at "The Irish" in Arras to properly celebrate the memory of Ireland's most famous alcoholic and Saint. While latter parts of the night became fuzzy to various people for various reasons, most agree that a good night was had by all, and that the gusto with which 'Barrett's Privateers' and 'O Canada' were sung was bested only in their frequency and volume. Understandably enough, guides and soldiers alike were in slightly less fine form when the Edmonton Regiment showed up for their tour at Vimy the following morning.
Canadian March Break translated into a slew of tours for Canadian school groups and tours over the course of the week, and by Saturday, after about 50 or so tours and about 4 billion photos taken by Canadian students, we were well-prepared for a break. After work, five co-workers (Sahar, Maxine, Colin, Marc and Lauren) and I headed for Paris for a night of unwinding. The Great Canadian Pub, located in the Latin Quarter just south of Notre Dame, was my final destination, providing one or two Moosehead beer and a much-needed Leafs-Bruins tilt to ease the lack of Canadian beer and NHL in my life in Arras. The next day necessitated another trip the the Pub, this time for a bacon-saturated breakfast, before heading back to the streets for a lazy sunny Sunday around the streets and riverside of Paris.
Our second round of March Break groups showed up in full-force Monday, with groups of hundreds of Canadians anxious to take another billion or so pictures of tunnel walls and what-not at Vimy. On Tuesday, fresh from the snowbanks of PEI, 23 Colonel Gray students showed up at our front door, floored by the sight of the Vimy Monument and site, but equally stunned by the sight of green grass, sprouting trees and daffodils that are exploding from the ground at an alarming pace. Indeed Spring has struck Northern France, with double-digit and sunny days dominating the forecast for the past week. Many of the guides have ditched their jackets and have taken to wearing only their shirts (most notably of which is Riggs, who is already sporting a painful sunburn). As if by clockwork, a package sent by my parents and aunt sent on February 7th (when it was still quite frigid) arrived today, complete with my gloves and a pair of new mittens. Such is life.
Wednesday, February 23, 2011
The Vimy Shuffle - Part VI
You know you've been in France too long when walking home from the store with a baguette under your arm no longer seems cliché.
Most of my housemates have gotten onto an intense baguette and cheese routine, to the point that there are literally 7 types of cheese per person in our kitchen. This isn't a bad thing in principle, but every now and then someone will get adventurous with their cheese selection, and then our fridges end up smelling like a poorly-managed waste treatment plant for a few days. And as the French have made the odd choice not to sell baking soda in their stores, the rest of are completely at the mercy of the stench. Fortunately, just as the baguette and cheese stereotypes hold true, so do those regarding chocolate and beer. Though I have always liked chocolate as much as the next guy, I have never eaten it to the extent that it consumes a significant portion of my disposable income. It seems I have developed a full-blown chocolate addiction here and am, by times, flirting on the edge of a diabetic coma. While I hope the same doesn't hold true for my booze intake, beer is ridiculously cheap in France. Last week a 12-pack of Stella Artois was going for 3.66 Euro (roughly $5) at the grocery store. And while the locals consider Stella a small step above Listerine or turpentine, I have absolutely no shame in buying it by the case. The bottles are slightly smaller, so we've done the math, and it turns out that a 12 of Stella here is about 1/3 the cost of a 12 of Tremblays or Boréale in Montréal... and lets remember that once you buy it, you don't have the misfortune of having to choke down 12 Tremblays or Boréale. That's a win-win-win by my count.
Back on the Western Front, our education on the First World War and the commemorative efforts here in Northern France and on behalf of Canada and the Commonwealth continues each Monday. Last week we had the opportunity to visit the Commonwealth War Graves Commission headquarters here in Arras. The Commission was established in 1917 (then the Imperial War Graves Commission) as a result of the concern that there was no coordinated plan in place to facilitate the construction of cemeteries and memorials for the hundreds of thousands of men who were dying in the war. Through the two world wars, the Commission worked to secure land for cemeteries and memorials, standardizing the design of gravestones and cemeteries to ensure some regularity, as well as somewhat of a comforting atmosphere for the families visiting the graves of the men who never came home. The final construction efforts were completed just a few years before the outbreak of World War Two, and then their work began anew. Funded by the governments of Commonwealth countries, their work continues today, maintaining the cemeteries where the soldiers who fought and fell now lay. In France alone, the Commission maintains graves in some 2991 cemeteries, and around the world is responsible for around 23,000 sites in 150 countries. In all, they are responsible for the maintenance of gravestones and memorials that commemorate about 1.3 million individuals.
Needless to say, their work is cut out for them (so to speak). Stones have to be replaced in the thousands each year due to age, and each must be carved in the stone originally chosen for the cemetery in which it stands. The same is true for the aging gates, fences, doorways and metalwork in each of the cemeteries. While the stones are now carved mainly using computerized machines, the wood craft and metalwork is still done very much by hand, and visiting each workshop to speak with the artisans on-site certainly gave a better idea - and an appreciation - for the amount of work that goes into maintaining such a massive amount of aging, yet none-the-less important, sites.
This Monday half of our group drove through Northern France to Belgium and visited several memorials and battle sites where Canadians, Australians, Indian and other Allied and Central Power forces were engaged during the First World War. We visited sites associated with the Battles at Ypres, where Lieutenant Colonel John McCrae wrote his poem 'In Flanders Fields', St. Julien, where Canadians suffered and endured the first poison gas attack of the war and held the Allied line, and Passchendaele, a costly victory for the British Forces, where Canada lost almost 16,000 men in just over two weeks.
The most sobering sights of the day were perhaps Tyne Cot Cemetery, the largest Commonwealth cemetery in the world, where over 46,000 men are buried or commemorated, and the Langemark German Military Cemetery, where more than 44,000 German soldiers lie, mostly unknown. The sheer numbers associated with the battles and memorials was certainly astounding, but it was even more incredible to see how extensively the men who fought and died are commemorated and honoured throughout the villages and the countryside. In Ypres, for example, Canada's contribution and losses during the war are still remembered today. Canadian flags hang from several buildings and mark the entrances to some of the stores and pubs along the cobblestone streets of their main square.
Back at Vimy, things are starting to pick up as Canadian University students and families take a mid-semester break, and as March break approaches. In proportion with the increase of visitors, we also get an increase of trouble-makers. Last week I had to yell at some 20-somethings who were trying to take rather inappropriate pictures with one of the female figures on the monument, which is meant to represent a mourning Canadian mother or wife. And on two different tours I was forced to stop the entire group of British school kids to stop them from a. pretending to shoot each other in trenches and b. making the Nazi salute while posing for pictures. In each case I remind them that hundreds of thousands of men died in the surrounding battlefields, many of whose bodies were never recovered. That Vimy is a very important and solemn commemorative park for Canadians, as well as for those countries whose young men died there as well. "So I would appreciate it if you would refrain from making gun noises or making the Nazi salute," I said. "Not only is this the wrong war, but it is also incredibly inappropriate." The sheepish looks on their faces suggested that they got the message, but I was assured they had when one small British boy came into the Visitor's Centre to apologize to me after the tour. "I'm sorry for giving the Nazi salute, Sir," he said in a very quiet voice and with a very British accent. "I looked very foolish."
Perhaps not as foolish as I looked a few nights later when I was charged with the task of getting gas. Usually a fairly simple task, to be sure. However, being a Canadian boy with very little use for diesel, I brashly thrust the first gas hose I grasped into the tank, and, predictably, gassed up our diesel van with 35 Euro worth of gasoline. Stupid as I was, I did recognize the difference in the smell of gas to that of diesel, and luckily had the sense not to start the van, which would've been fairly large problem, instead of a relatively small one. And so, as I sit here writing this, our staff of 14 has been without our much-needed van for four days, and has instead had to jerry-rig an exchange schedule for all the Canada vehicles at the disposal of Veteran's Affairs here in Arras. Swift move, Gallant.
Most of my housemates have gotten onto an intense baguette and cheese routine, to the point that there are literally 7 types of cheese per person in our kitchen. This isn't a bad thing in principle, but every now and then someone will get adventurous with their cheese selection, and then our fridges end up smelling like a poorly-managed waste treatment plant for a few days. And as the French have made the odd choice not to sell baking soda in their stores, the rest of are completely at the mercy of the stench. Fortunately, just as the baguette and cheese stereotypes hold true, so do those regarding chocolate and beer. Though I have always liked chocolate as much as the next guy, I have never eaten it to the extent that it consumes a significant portion of my disposable income. It seems I have developed a full-blown chocolate addiction here and am, by times, flirting on the edge of a diabetic coma. While I hope the same doesn't hold true for my booze intake, beer is ridiculously cheap in France. Last week a 12-pack of Stella Artois was going for 3.66 Euro (roughly $5) at the grocery store. And while the locals consider Stella a small step above Listerine or turpentine, I have absolutely no shame in buying it by the case. The bottles are slightly smaller, so we've done the math, and it turns out that a 12 of Stella here is about 1/3 the cost of a 12 of Tremblays or Boréale in Montréal... and lets remember that once you buy it, you don't have the misfortune of having to choke down 12 Tremblays or Boréale. That's a win-win-win by my count.
Back on the Western Front, our education on the First World War and the commemorative efforts here in Northern France and on behalf of Canada and the Commonwealth continues each Monday. Last week we had the opportunity to visit the Commonwealth War Graves Commission headquarters here in Arras. The Commission was established in 1917 (then the Imperial War Graves Commission) as a result of the concern that there was no coordinated plan in place to facilitate the construction of cemeteries and memorials for the hundreds of thousands of men who were dying in the war. Through the two world wars, the Commission worked to secure land for cemeteries and memorials, standardizing the design of gravestones and cemeteries to ensure some regularity, as well as somewhat of a comforting atmosphere for the families visiting the graves of the men who never came home. The final construction efforts were completed just a few years before the outbreak of World War Two, and then their work began anew. Funded by the governments of Commonwealth countries, their work continues today, maintaining the cemeteries where the soldiers who fought and fell now lay. In France alone, the Commission maintains graves in some 2991 cemeteries, and around the world is responsible for around 23,000 sites in 150 countries. In all, they are responsible for the maintenance of gravestones and memorials that commemorate about 1.3 million individuals.
Needless to say, their work is cut out for them (so to speak). Stones have to be replaced in the thousands each year due to age, and each must be carved in the stone originally chosen for the cemetery in which it stands. The same is true for the aging gates, fences, doorways and metalwork in each of the cemeteries. While the stones are now carved mainly using computerized machines, the wood craft and metalwork is still done very much by hand, and visiting each workshop to speak with the artisans on-site certainly gave a better idea - and an appreciation - for the amount of work that goes into maintaining such a massive amount of aging, yet none-the-less important, sites.
This Monday half of our group drove through Northern France to Belgium and visited several memorials and battle sites where Canadians, Australians, Indian and other Allied and Central Power forces were engaged during the First World War. We visited sites associated with the Battles at Ypres, where Lieutenant Colonel John McCrae wrote his poem 'In Flanders Fields', St. Julien, where Canadians suffered and endured the first poison gas attack of the war and held the Allied line, and Passchendaele, a costly victory for the British Forces, where Canada lost almost 16,000 men in just over two weeks.
The most sobering sights of the day were perhaps Tyne Cot Cemetery, the largest Commonwealth cemetery in the world, where over 46,000 men are buried or commemorated, and the Langemark German Military Cemetery, where more than 44,000 German soldiers lie, mostly unknown. The sheer numbers associated with the battles and memorials was certainly astounding, but it was even more incredible to see how extensively the men who fought and died are commemorated and honoured throughout the villages and the countryside. In Ypres, for example, Canada's contribution and losses during the war are still remembered today. Canadian flags hang from several buildings and mark the entrances to some of the stores and pubs along the cobblestone streets of their main square.
Back at Vimy, things are starting to pick up as Canadian University students and families take a mid-semester break, and as March break approaches. In proportion with the increase of visitors, we also get an increase of trouble-makers. Last week I had to yell at some 20-somethings who were trying to take rather inappropriate pictures with one of the female figures on the monument, which is meant to represent a mourning Canadian mother or wife. And on two different tours I was forced to stop the entire group of British school kids to stop them from a. pretending to shoot each other in trenches and b. making the Nazi salute while posing for pictures. In each case I remind them that hundreds of thousands of men died in the surrounding battlefields, many of whose bodies were never recovered. That Vimy is a very important and solemn commemorative park for Canadians, as well as for those countries whose young men died there as well. "So I would appreciate it if you would refrain from making gun noises or making the Nazi salute," I said. "Not only is this the wrong war, but it is also incredibly inappropriate." The sheepish looks on their faces suggested that they got the message, but I was assured they had when one small British boy came into the Visitor's Centre to apologize to me after the tour. "I'm sorry for giving the Nazi salute, Sir," he said in a very quiet voice and with a very British accent. "I looked very foolish."
Perhaps not as foolish as I looked a few nights later when I was charged with the task of getting gas. Usually a fairly simple task, to be sure. However, being a Canadian boy with very little use for diesel, I brashly thrust the first gas hose I grasped into the tank, and, predictably, gassed up our diesel van with 35 Euro worth of gasoline. Stupid as I was, I did recognize the difference in the smell of gas to that of diesel, and luckily had the sense not to start the van, which would've been fairly large problem, instead of a relatively small one. And so, as I sit here writing this, our staff of 14 has been without our much-needed van for four days, and has instead had to jerry-rig an exchange schedule for all the Canada vehicles at the disposal of Veteran's Affairs here in Arras. Swift move, Gallant.
Friday, February 11, 2011
The Vimy Shuffle - Part V
As with any new city and any new job, we have all slowly slipped into some semblance of routine as our surroundings have become more familiar and as the once-steep learning curve has slackened. While I still found new ways to get lost on the drive to work every morning, and while many helpful criticisms were shared amongst co-workers in our first week (which were received on a scale varying between gracious and contemptuous), inevitably we have all begun to settle into life in France. (This also means that our fridge is filled with anywhere between 20 and 30 types of cheese, all of which stink.)
For those of us at Vimy, our workday is centred around the Visitor's Centre, where our schedule for the day is coordinated and where tours are booked. From there we take turns guiding or following tours of the tunnels and trenches, answering questions or talking with locals at the monument, and walking around the parking lot waiting for someone to show up or for someone to step on the grass so we can yell at them. Typically the tours of tunnels and trenches take about 50 minutes, and represent the fruits of our in-depth training session we received in our first week here.
At Vimy, the 172nd Royal Engineers dug a series of 13, sometimes interconnected, subways and tunnels that at the time of the battle snaked for 10-12 kilometers under the surface. The tunnel we now have access to was the second longest on that day in 1917, stretching for 1.2 kilometers, of which about 200 meters are accessible to the public today. Tours consist of explaining to visitors how the tunnels were dug the purpose they served and the risks inherent in the operations and maintenance of them during the time leading up to the battle. The tour takes us into an underground battalion headquarters that consists of five rooms (that at the time housed officers from Princess Patricia's Canadian Light Infantry) to the mouth of a deep-fighting tunnel (that would've been used to blow massive mine craters in No Man's Land or under German defenses) and in view of the tunnel where one of the Black Watch of Montreal Battalions would've waited before shuffling out onto the battlefield in the hours that preceded the Arras offensive. The end of the tunnel tour brings us out the original exit of the tunnel into the backside of preserved Canadian trenches where we continue to explain the tactics that were used at Vimy, the awesome power of the rolling barrage that helped secure victory that day and show examples of the effects that the underground mines had on the surface.
The tunnels and trenches are quite impressive, but this is hampered once one realizes that this battle and war was fought for practically no reason, and had few redeeming results. For all the lessons learned from the Somme and Verdun that made Vimy a success, millions of men died. Millions more would die before the end of the war. Some were mowed down my machine-gun fire or smothered by poison gasses, many were vaporized by the exciting new technologies of the day, and still others in the trenches, beaten down by the pneumonia, dysentery or other diseases that come with living in frigid holes in the grounds for months at a time. As one of my co-workers emphasizes in her tour, today the whole nation mourns where one or two soldiers dies in a war zone. On April 9th, 1917, 3,598 Canadian died in a field in foreign land, thousands of miles from home, and mostly just because some oligarchical heads of state had bruised egos.
If I was nervous at all about my first tour (I was), I didn't have to wait long to face my fear. My first tour was a group of 25 French students, the morning of my first day. We had been warned that many groups of French students were very badly-behaved, would make fun of our accents and just be general assholes. That did not help my confidence. Nor my already sketchy French accent. However, this particular group was very well-behaved and were also very attentive, and it was instead my french that failed me. One would think that after nine years of French semi-immersion in a classroom with a chalkboard one would remember the word for "chalk". However, pressed for the name of the material the tunnels are dug in, my ind drew a complete blank, and I had to rely on Jenna, my follow on this particular tour to bail me out. (She also says that instead of saying "messenger" for some of the tour I instead said "mailbox", making for some very confused French kids I would assume. "How did they get the mailboxes to run through the trenches?"). In the end, the tour wasn't a complete disaster, but it definitely sent me back to the books and humbled my "know-it-all" demeanor for a day or two. By the end of the week I had led another half-dozen or so tours and they were starting to come together.
Our week of training and of getting a lay of the land during the battle is also very helpful when stationed at the monument, probably the site that most people would identify with Vimy Ridge today. One look at the land surrounding the monument and the view that spans out from its position atop Hill 145 makes its importance to military strategy immediately obvious. The monument itself, however, has a history of its own. Carved from 6,000 tonnes of Seget stone from a Croatian quarry and built on a base of 11,000 tonnes of concrete, the monument took eleven years to complete, and was unveiled at a huge ceremony on July 26th, 1936. After the breakout of the Second World War, accusations were leveled against the Nazis, alleging that soldiers were vandalizing WWI sites in occupied France and Belgium. In response, who had served on the Vimy front as a messenger in the First World War, visited the Vimy Memorial on June 2nd, 1940 to prove that Germany was not desecrating the war memorials of the Commonwealth countries. Later in the war two Nazi soldiers committed suicide by jumping from the memorial after receiving word that they were being transferred to the eastern front.
This is of course not what I think about in my one or two hours a day that I am stationed at the monument. Most of my time is spent greeting people as they walk up to the monument, and then chasing them around to see if they have any questions about it. Though I am a guide, I feel more like a retail salesperson, whose queries of "Can I help you?" are to be dodged at all costs. The only people who do not seem completely annoyed with giving me the time of day are Canadians who have made the long trek to Northern France just to get a glance at the monument, and old French couples who talk on end about their lives here during the Second World War and the coal mines that dot the landscape over the expansive kilometers in view from the top of Hill 145. As the Battle of Vimy Ridge is for Canadians, the monument is symbolic for those who have lived their entire lives in its shadow, and they teach me more about the region and the effects of war than I could ever hope to convey after reading about it in a book. And I am very much content to listen.
For those of us at Vimy, our workday is centred around the Visitor's Centre, where our schedule for the day is coordinated and where tours are booked. From there we take turns guiding or following tours of the tunnels and trenches, answering questions or talking with locals at the monument, and walking around the parking lot waiting for someone to show up or for someone to step on the grass so we can yell at them. Typically the tours of tunnels and trenches take about 50 minutes, and represent the fruits of our in-depth training session we received in our first week here.
At Vimy, the 172nd Royal Engineers dug a series of 13, sometimes interconnected, subways and tunnels that at the time of the battle snaked for 10-12 kilometers under the surface. The tunnel we now have access to was the second longest on that day in 1917, stretching for 1.2 kilometers, of which about 200 meters are accessible to the public today. Tours consist of explaining to visitors how the tunnels were dug the purpose they served and the risks inherent in the operations and maintenance of them during the time leading up to the battle. The tour takes us into an underground battalion headquarters that consists of five rooms (that at the time housed officers from Princess Patricia's Canadian Light Infantry) to the mouth of a deep-fighting tunnel (that would've been used to blow massive mine craters in No Man's Land or under German defenses) and in view of the tunnel where one of the Black Watch of Montreal Battalions would've waited before shuffling out onto the battlefield in the hours that preceded the Arras offensive. The end of the tunnel tour brings us out the original exit of the tunnel into the backside of preserved Canadian trenches where we continue to explain the tactics that were used at Vimy, the awesome power of the rolling barrage that helped secure victory that day and show examples of the effects that the underground mines had on the surface.
The tunnels and trenches are quite impressive, but this is hampered once one realizes that this battle and war was fought for practically no reason, and had few redeeming results. For all the lessons learned from the Somme and Verdun that made Vimy a success, millions of men died. Millions more would die before the end of the war. Some were mowed down my machine-gun fire or smothered by poison gasses, many were vaporized by the exciting new technologies of the day, and still others in the trenches, beaten down by the pneumonia, dysentery or other diseases that come with living in frigid holes in the grounds for months at a time. As one of my co-workers emphasizes in her tour, today the whole nation mourns where one or two soldiers dies in a war zone. On April 9th, 1917, 3,598 Canadian died in a field in foreign land, thousands of miles from home, and mostly just because some oligarchical heads of state had bruised egos.
If I was nervous at all about my first tour (I was), I didn't have to wait long to face my fear. My first tour was a group of 25 French students, the morning of my first day. We had been warned that many groups of French students were very badly-behaved, would make fun of our accents and just be general assholes. That did not help my confidence. Nor my already sketchy French accent. However, this particular group was very well-behaved and were also very attentive, and it was instead my french that failed me. One would think that after nine years of French semi-immersion in a classroom with a chalkboard one would remember the word for "chalk". However, pressed for the name of the material the tunnels are dug in, my ind drew a complete blank, and I had to rely on Jenna, my follow on this particular tour to bail me out. (She also says that instead of saying "messenger" for some of the tour I instead said "mailbox", making for some very confused French kids I would assume. "How did they get the mailboxes to run through the trenches?"). In the end, the tour wasn't a complete disaster, but it definitely sent me back to the books and humbled my "know-it-all" demeanor for a day or two. By the end of the week I had led another half-dozen or so tours and they were starting to come together.
Our week of training and of getting a lay of the land during the battle is also very helpful when stationed at the monument, probably the site that most people would identify with Vimy Ridge today. One look at the land surrounding the monument and the view that spans out from its position atop Hill 145 makes its importance to military strategy immediately obvious. The monument itself, however, has a history of its own. Carved from 6,000 tonnes of Seget stone from a Croatian quarry and built on a base of 11,000 tonnes of concrete, the monument took eleven years to complete, and was unveiled at a huge ceremony on July 26th, 1936. After the breakout of the Second World War, accusations were leveled against the Nazis, alleging that soldiers were vandalizing WWI sites in occupied France and Belgium. In response, who had served on the Vimy front as a messenger in the First World War, visited the Vimy Memorial on June 2nd, 1940 to prove that Germany was not desecrating the war memorials of the Commonwealth countries. Later in the war two Nazi soldiers committed suicide by jumping from the memorial after receiving word that they were being transferred to the eastern front.
This is of course not what I think about in my one or two hours a day that I am stationed at the monument. Most of my time is spent greeting people as they walk up to the monument, and then chasing them around to see if they have any questions about it. Though I am a guide, I feel more like a retail salesperson, whose queries of "Can I help you?" are to be dodged at all costs. The only people who do not seem completely annoyed with giving me the time of day are Canadians who have made the long trek to Northern France just to get a glance at the monument, and old French couples who talk on end about their lives here during the Second World War and the coal mines that dot the landscape over the expansive kilometers in view from the top of Hill 145. As the Battle of Vimy Ridge is for Canadians, the monument is symbolic for those who have lived their entire lives in its shadow, and they teach me more about the region and the effects of war than I could ever hope to convey after reading about it in a book. And I am very much content to listen.
Sunday, January 30, 2011
The Vimy Shuffle - Part IV
It is early on a Saturday morning, and I am standing in the middle of a field in Northern France. The morning sun, high above the clouds, has not yet dispersed the mist, and it clings to the trees scattered around me and floats just above the green grass that reaches out in all directions. As the piercing cold stings my hands, I perceive the profound silence here, miles from the closest town. Usually being enveloped in such an environment would be peaceful, but the scene before me today is, in contrast, haunting. Planted around me are thousands of black crosses, marking the final resting place of over 44,000 German soldiers from the First World War. This is the German cemetery at Neuville St-Vaast. It is our first stop of the day in a week that has been filled with site visits and orientation on the battlefields of the Great War in France.
Our training started Monday, five days before, with a whirlwind of administrative processes and briefings on the Vimy and Beaumont-Hamel sites, as well as all Canadian memorials maintained by Veterans Affairs Canada in Europe. Much of our direction was delivered by VAC Admin in France, but also via teleconference from various people back home at Veterans Affairs in Charlottetown. Over the course of two days we filled out tax and employee forms, toured both the Vimy and Beaumont-Hamel site, received instruction on how to drive in France and for over an hour, with much trial and error, were outfitted with our bright green and red uniforms, complete with a couple golf shirts, a dress shirt, dress pants, belt, fleece sweater, rain coat, wind-breaker, splash pants, toque, and neck-warmer, with ties for the guys and scarves for the girls.
By Wednesday morning, most of the formalities had been dealt with, and we settled in for a couple days of solid classroom instruction. What followed could be described as a two-day ultra-intensive University-level WWI course. We covered, at length, the ranks and structure of the Canadian military, with a crash course in HQ organization and logistics on the front. This was followed by instruction on the range, technical issues and evolution of guns, artillery and weapons during the Great War. Then we tried to keep up with a four-hour brief on the First World War in general, focusing on major battles, campaigns and strategies of all sides on all fronts. Then the French Red Cross took an hour of our day to explain how to dial '18' (European '911').
Thursday consisted of eight more hours of classroom instruction, this time with more specific focus on the Battle of the Somme, including Beaumont-Hamel, and the Battle of Arras, including Vimy Ridge. Although the instruction on both Wednesday and Thursday were phenomenal, I still struggled to stay awake, as the lingering effects of jet-lag were allowing me only 3 or 4 hours of sleep a night. Either way, by the end of the day Thursday we had more info and background on the First World War than we know what to do with. The next two days would help us put it all in context.
On Friday we visited close to a dozen sites involving the Battle of the Somme. Braving the biting cold, we took a full tour of the remains of the battlefield at Beaumont-Hamel, before driving to different cemeteries, towns and random fields to get a lay of the land as it stood on July 1st, 1916; the first day of the four-month battle. Seeing the lines as drawn across the miles of countryside, the size of the craters that were blown that morning to initiate the attack, the extensive German fortifications behind their 2nd line at Pozières and the countless war cemeteries that dot the countryside of Northern France were all eye-opening experiences. To trudge through the mud in the path of these soldiers and to visit the cemeteries where they fell (some as young as 16 or 17) quickly brings the reality of war into focus. I am doubtful that a higher-quality tour of the battlefields of the Great War exists.
And so, when I found myself in the middle of a massive cemetery on Saturday morning, I felt better-equipped to comprehend the context of where we stood and the events that led to these men being buried in this foreign field. Over the course of the day we would visit several Canadian memorial sites and get better oriented in how the lines were drawn at the Battle of Arras. By 5:00, as we gazed at the imposing rear slope of the ridge that Canadians had fought and died capturing, we were all freezing, exhausted and hoping that, somehow, all of the info that we had been taught over the past six days would somehow be absorbed into our brains. Most of us were also ready for a beer.
Sunday was a near-carbon copy of the one before, with late mornings all-around. In the evening, I walked through Arras with Reta, Kristina and Becky for Mass at the beautiful L'église St. Jean-Baptiste. It seemed a fulfilling conclusion to what had been an extremely busy, but incredible week. One would expect our next week, however, to include a another steep learning curve, as we would begin to put our training into action. The next day would be our first in uniform.
Our training started Monday, five days before, with a whirlwind of administrative processes and briefings on the Vimy and Beaumont-Hamel sites, as well as all Canadian memorials maintained by Veterans Affairs Canada in Europe. Much of our direction was delivered by VAC Admin in France, but also via teleconference from various people back home at Veterans Affairs in Charlottetown. Over the course of two days we filled out tax and employee forms, toured both the Vimy and Beaumont-Hamel site, received instruction on how to drive in France and for over an hour, with much trial and error, were outfitted with our bright green and red uniforms, complete with a couple golf shirts, a dress shirt, dress pants, belt, fleece sweater, rain coat, wind-breaker, splash pants, toque, and neck-warmer, with ties for the guys and scarves for the girls.
By Wednesday morning, most of the formalities had been dealt with, and we settled in for a couple days of solid classroom instruction. What followed could be described as a two-day ultra-intensive University-level WWI course. We covered, at length, the ranks and structure of the Canadian military, with a crash course in HQ organization and logistics on the front. This was followed by instruction on the range, technical issues and evolution of guns, artillery and weapons during the Great War. Then we tried to keep up with a four-hour brief on the First World War in general, focusing on major battles, campaigns and strategies of all sides on all fronts. Then the French Red Cross took an hour of our day to explain how to dial '18' (European '911').
Thursday consisted of eight more hours of classroom instruction, this time with more specific focus on the Battle of the Somme, including Beaumont-Hamel, and the Battle of Arras, including Vimy Ridge. Although the instruction on both Wednesday and Thursday were phenomenal, I still struggled to stay awake, as the lingering effects of jet-lag were allowing me only 3 or 4 hours of sleep a night. Either way, by the end of the day Thursday we had more info and background on the First World War than we know what to do with. The next two days would help us put it all in context.
On Friday we visited close to a dozen sites involving the Battle of the Somme. Braving the biting cold, we took a full tour of the remains of the battlefield at Beaumont-Hamel, before driving to different cemeteries, towns and random fields to get a lay of the land as it stood on July 1st, 1916; the first day of the four-month battle. Seeing the lines as drawn across the miles of countryside, the size of the craters that were blown that morning to initiate the attack, the extensive German fortifications behind their 2nd line at Pozières and the countless war cemeteries that dot the countryside of Northern France were all eye-opening experiences. To trudge through the mud in the path of these soldiers and to visit the cemeteries where they fell (some as young as 16 or 17) quickly brings the reality of war into focus. I am doubtful that a higher-quality tour of the battlefields of the Great War exists.
And so, when I found myself in the middle of a massive cemetery on Saturday morning, I felt better-equipped to comprehend the context of where we stood and the events that led to these men being buried in this foreign field. Over the course of the day we would visit several Canadian memorial sites and get better oriented in how the lines were drawn at the Battle of Arras. By 5:00, as we gazed at the imposing rear slope of the ridge that Canadians had fought and died capturing, we were all freezing, exhausted and hoping that, somehow, all of the info that we had been taught over the past six days would somehow be absorbed into our brains. Most of us were also ready for a beer.
Sunday was a near-carbon copy of the one before, with late mornings all-around. In the evening, I walked through Arras with Reta, Kristina and Becky for Mass at the beautiful L'église St. Jean-Baptiste. It seemed a fulfilling conclusion to what had been an extremely busy, but incredible week. One would expect our next week, however, to include a another steep learning curve, as we would begin to put our training into action. The next day would be our first in uniform.
Monday, January 24, 2011
The Vimy Shuffle - Part III
Sunday started slower than most for the crew both here and at the other guide house at St-Aubert. The sleeping endurance title went to our most recent arrival, Jenna, who clocked in at 14 hours of sleep, on her way to extinguishing some of the jet-lag that we had all incurred over the past week. My roommate Colin, Jenna and I spent our last evening before training walking the cobblestone streets and seeing Arras by night.
When awoke early the next morning to get ready to head to Vimy Ridge, the house was freezing. The stone floors felt like ice, making getting out of both bed and the shower and extra challenge at such an early hour. At some point during the night our heaters had shut off, leaving the house barely warmer than outside. We made it out of the house on time, but to no shortage of grumbled complaints. We, along with the guides from St-Aubs, jumped into two white cars with "Canada" emblazoned on the side for the trek to Vimy Ridge, some 20 minutes outside Arras.
The Battle of Vimy Ridge was part of the larger British offensive known as the Battle of Arras, undertaken on April 9th, 1917. It marks the first time that the four Divisions of the Canadian Corps fought together, taking on three Divisions of the German Sixth Army in order to secure a ridge that had eluded both French and British troops in past attempts. After an extensive artillery barrage and meticulous planning, the Canadian Corps advanced at 5:30am on Easter Monday, 1917. By the evening of April 12th, three days later, Canada had firm control of the ridge and the surrounding countryside. The battle established Canada as a formidable fighting force, one that lead the charge in the defeat of Germany the following year, and has been known for generations as "a nation-making moment". Said one veteran after the battle "We went up the ridge as Albertans and Nova Scotians. We came down as Canadians."
The costs were heavy as well, however, as Canada suffered 10,602 casualties with 3,598 killed and 7,004 wounded during the battle. As a result of Canada's incredible success in the battle at Vimy and unprecedented contribution to the war, it signed the Treaty of Versailles as an independent nation, and would later gain complete independence from Great Britain in all matters, including foreign affairs, with the Statute of Westminster in 1931. In gratitude to the Canadian people, France granted a 260-acre parcel of land on the site of where the battle occurred in perpetuity to Canada, where the breath-taking Vimy Ridge Memorial was completed in 1936. As well as a commemoration of the Battle of Vimy Ridge, it stands as a memorial for all Canadian soldiers who fell in France with no known grave, their names engraved in stone around the base of the structure. The site today is also comprised of the remains of trenches and shell craters, as well as 500 metres of underground tunnels that once snaked for kilometres under the battlefield on both the Canadian and German sides.
Vimy remains a watershed moment in Canadian history, and as a proud Canadians and a historian at heart, the battle has interested me since I first heard about it in Grade 6, and my interest has only deepened as I studied it further through High School and during my undergraduate degree at UPEI. Part of my job will be informing visitors about the contributions of Canadians here, and of those of the Newfoundland Regiment at Beaumont-Hamel during the Battle of the Somme. Monday morning, however, was to be my first time seeing it in person.
The Chemin des Canadiens snakes into the commemorative park between convolutions that fold the landscape into mounds around pits and pockmarks carved by artillery and explosives long ago. The soft green grass and trees that have grown in the 94 years since betray the story of the brutal battle, but also create an eerie silence amidst the fog that often clings to the forest here. This is the final resting place of many Canadians whose bodies were never recovered, and there are untold numbers of unexploded and undiscovered shells that hide somewhere deep in these mounds. The impact of this sight was perhaps stronger than that of seeing the monument itself, which is no small statement, as the two white pillars of the Vimy Memorial reaching 40 metres above the French countryside is a spectacular sight.
We began the day with introductions and then progressed through the usual administrative and introductory work to familiarize ourselves with our roles and responsibilities as guides with the Government of Canada. This was followed with a brief tour of the memorial itself, and then of the tunnels used by Canadians during the battle, some eight metres below the surface. We then drove to Beaumont-Hamel to visit the Newfoundland Memorial, about sixty minutes away.
The Battle of the Somme represents for many the senseless and brutal slaughter that was the Great War. In the first day of the battle alone, the British Empire lost 60,000 men - and this was a battle that lasted nearly four months. The Royal Newfoundland Regiment, made up of men from the Dominion of Newfoundland (independent from Canada until 1949), has been transferred to the Western Front from their post in Gallipoli in March of 1916, and was part of the 29th British Division on the first day of the Somme. It remains an infamous day in British military history, but particularly for the people of Newfoundland.
When the Newfoundland Regiment advanced the morning of July 1st, 1916, they faced barbed wire defenses and artillery fire, and struggled to advance over the bodies of the dead and wounded men who had faced the same perils minutes before. Pinned down by heavy machine gun fire, the Newfoundlanders relented in their push and moved back towards their trench, only to be gunned down as they retreated. They suffered a horrendous casualty rate of 90% and of the 780 Newfoundlanders who had gone over the top, 68 answered roll call the following morning.
A lone caribou stands watch over the remains of the battlefield today, representing Newfoundland and the caribou on the crest of the Royal Newfoundland Regiment. The land it overlooks is the largest section of the Battle of the Somme that remains, the rest now stretching out as tranquil farmland in all directions.
After visiting Beaumont-Hamel, we returned to Arras, only to find that our house was still frigid. As it turns out, we were out of oil, and none could be delivered until the following day. Mercifully, several space heaters had been dropped off for our use. We plugged in a few of them and began to cook supper. Meanwhile, as we turned on the electrical heaters around the house, we threw the circuit, leaving the house in complete darkness, and our meals cold. Unable to fix the problem with the usual fuse box-flick, we called in a repairman, and went off in search of fries via fry wagon, or some other such French delicacy. We found one down the street and, after ordering, returned home and sat down for our first family meal together at Vauban, bonding over heaping portions of fries and croque-monsieurs, or other such sandwiches.
With the power restored, we re-set our alarm clocks and climbed into out cold beds in our cold house. However, our grumbling complaints from that morning were perhaps somewhat muted after having walked through the fields where Canadians had suffered far worse conditions and awaited far worse fates so many years ago.
When awoke early the next morning to get ready to head to Vimy Ridge, the house was freezing. The stone floors felt like ice, making getting out of both bed and the shower and extra challenge at such an early hour. At some point during the night our heaters had shut off, leaving the house barely warmer than outside. We made it out of the house on time, but to no shortage of grumbled complaints. We, along with the guides from St-Aubs, jumped into two white cars with "Canada" emblazoned on the side for the trek to Vimy Ridge, some 20 minutes outside Arras.
The Battle of Vimy Ridge was part of the larger British offensive known as the Battle of Arras, undertaken on April 9th, 1917. It marks the first time that the four Divisions of the Canadian Corps fought together, taking on three Divisions of the German Sixth Army in order to secure a ridge that had eluded both French and British troops in past attempts. After an extensive artillery barrage and meticulous planning, the Canadian Corps advanced at 5:30am on Easter Monday, 1917. By the evening of April 12th, three days later, Canada had firm control of the ridge and the surrounding countryside. The battle established Canada as a formidable fighting force, one that lead the charge in the defeat of Germany the following year, and has been known for generations as "a nation-making moment". Said one veteran after the battle "We went up the ridge as Albertans and Nova Scotians. We came down as Canadians."
The costs were heavy as well, however, as Canada suffered 10,602 casualties with 3,598 killed and 7,004 wounded during the battle. As a result of Canada's incredible success in the battle at Vimy and unprecedented contribution to the war, it signed the Treaty of Versailles as an independent nation, and would later gain complete independence from Great Britain in all matters, including foreign affairs, with the Statute of Westminster in 1931. In gratitude to the Canadian people, France granted a 260-acre parcel of land on the site of where the battle occurred in perpetuity to Canada, where the breath-taking Vimy Ridge Memorial was completed in 1936. As well as a commemoration of the Battle of Vimy Ridge, it stands as a memorial for all Canadian soldiers who fell in France with no known grave, their names engraved in stone around the base of the structure. The site today is also comprised of the remains of trenches and shell craters, as well as 500 metres of underground tunnels that once snaked for kilometres under the battlefield on both the Canadian and German sides.
Vimy remains a watershed moment in Canadian history, and as a proud Canadians and a historian at heart, the battle has interested me since I first heard about it in Grade 6, and my interest has only deepened as I studied it further through High School and during my undergraduate degree at UPEI. Part of my job will be informing visitors about the contributions of Canadians here, and of those of the Newfoundland Regiment at Beaumont-Hamel during the Battle of the Somme. Monday morning, however, was to be my first time seeing it in person.
The Chemin des Canadiens snakes into the commemorative park between convolutions that fold the landscape into mounds around pits and pockmarks carved by artillery and explosives long ago. The soft green grass and trees that have grown in the 94 years since betray the story of the brutal battle, but also create an eerie silence amidst the fog that often clings to the forest here. This is the final resting place of many Canadians whose bodies were never recovered, and there are untold numbers of unexploded and undiscovered shells that hide somewhere deep in these mounds. The impact of this sight was perhaps stronger than that of seeing the monument itself, which is no small statement, as the two white pillars of the Vimy Memorial reaching 40 metres above the French countryside is a spectacular sight.
We began the day with introductions and then progressed through the usual administrative and introductory work to familiarize ourselves with our roles and responsibilities as guides with the Government of Canada. This was followed with a brief tour of the memorial itself, and then of the tunnels used by Canadians during the battle, some eight metres below the surface. We then drove to Beaumont-Hamel to visit the Newfoundland Memorial, about sixty minutes away.
The Battle of the Somme represents for many the senseless and brutal slaughter that was the Great War. In the first day of the battle alone, the British Empire lost 60,000 men - and this was a battle that lasted nearly four months. The Royal Newfoundland Regiment, made up of men from the Dominion of Newfoundland (independent from Canada until 1949), has been transferred to the Western Front from their post in Gallipoli in March of 1916, and was part of the 29th British Division on the first day of the Somme. It remains an infamous day in British military history, but particularly for the people of Newfoundland.
When the Newfoundland Regiment advanced the morning of July 1st, 1916, they faced barbed wire defenses and artillery fire, and struggled to advance over the bodies of the dead and wounded men who had faced the same perils minutes before. Pinned down by heavy machine gun fire, the Newfoundlanders relented in their push and moved back towards their trench, only to be gunned down as they retreated. They suffered a horrendous casualty rate of 90% and of the 780 Newfoundlanders who had gone over the top, 68 answered roll call the following morning.
A lone caribou stands watch over the remains of the battlefield today, representing Newfoundland and the caribou on the crest of the Royal Newfoundland Regiment. The land it overlooks is the largest section of the Battle of the Somme that remains, the rest now stretching out as tranquil farmland in all directions.
After visiting Beaumont-Hamel, we returned to Arras, only to find that our house was still frigid. As it turns out, we were out of oil, and none could be delivered until the following day. Mercifully, several space heaters had been dropped off for our use. We plugged in a few of them and began to cook supper. Meanwhile, as we turned on the electrical heaters around the house, we threw the circuit, leaving the house in complete darkness, and our meals cold. Unable to fix the problem with the usual fuse box-flick, we called in a repairman, and went off in search of fries via fry wagon, or some other such French delicacy. We found one down the street and, after ordering, returned home and sat down for our first family meal together at Vauban, bonding over heaping portions of fries and croque-monsieurs, or other such sandwiches.
With the power restored, we re-set our alarm clocks and climbed into out cold beds in our cold house. However, our grumbling complaints from that morning were perhaps somewhat muted after having walked through the fields where Canadians had suffered far worse conditions and awaited far worse fates so many years ago.
The Vimy Shuffle - Part II
Friday started with what I have come to accept as the typical hostel breakfast: tons of bread, Nutella, bland cereal and coffee. I shared it and stories of home and travels with a Vancouverite named Sarah, who was just beginning her own 3-month adventure in Europe. From there, I packed my bags and headed to Paris Nord train station for my trip north. Being as I had left Montreal in -30 temperatures, the +3 Parisian climate seemed balmy by comparison. I entered the station in a long-sleeve t-shirt which was met with some very cold stares from some very cold commuters who were huddled around space heaters, bundled up in what seemed to be every piece of winter clothing they owned.
The beauty of the Northern French countryside as viewed by train is bested only by the small towns that dot the landscape. A 50-minute train ride brought me into the town of Arras, a small town (at 48,000, slightly larger than Charlottetown) in the Pas-de-Calais department in northern France, approaching the Belgian border. Arras was founded by Belgic tribes and later became an important garrison town for the Roman Empire. The modern form of the town took shape around the Benedictine Abbey of St. Vaast sometime in the 5th century. Situated in the path of pivotal battles of the First World War, Arras was devastated by the bombing and warfare, and much of the original Gothic architecture of the city was destroyed, though much has been restored, making the two large squares, Grande Place and the Place des Héros, along with the imposing town belfry, some of the most picturesque in all of Europe.
At the train station I was met by André, the Visitor Activities Support Officer here in France, and Lauren Johnson, another guide who arrived on the same train. André gave us a brief overview of Arras en route to one of the two houses occupied by guides here in Arras, and gave me a tour of the house that I would be living in. The house at Vauban is a three-storey residence owned by the Government of Canada that is leased to guides during the duration of their stay here in Arras. The ground floor has a small kitchen and pantry (with 3 fridges and a freezer to accommodate all our food and drink), a large living room and dining room, as well as a large back patio area, garage (for bikes and garbage) and laundry facilities. (It also has a toilet in a closet). Upstairs there are, in total, four rooms, two large bathrooms, another toilet closet, and a very odd hallway filled with abnormally large closets. For my three months here, I will be living at Vauban with 6 other guides (split between those four bedrooms), with the additional 7 guides living at a large 3-floor apartment a short distance from here.
Throughout Friday, my co-workers slowly trickled into Arras with each arriving train, so that by that evening, all but two had arrived. We spent Friday night talking and getting to know each other, but as jet-lag set in, all of us crashed early and hard and retired to bed, where most of us stayed until early the following afternoon.
On Saturday I took my first walk alone around Arras, visiting the town squares and the massive Cathédrale Notre-Dame-et-Saint-Vaast d'Arras, which was built on the site of a 1000-year old Cathedral in 1833, after the original basilica was destroyed in the French Revolution. Over the course of the day, Jenna and Sahar, the last two components of our 14-member team, arrived in Arras. The full roster congregated at Vauban for some additional introductions and an animated game of Sociables. And so, along with seven Ontarians*, one Newfie, a Nova Scotian, a Manitoban, an Albertan, a British Columbian and an army brat from all over (but primarily from Ottawa), I headed out on the town in Arras.
*I feel it important to note here that while there are seven Ontarians in our group, not one of them identifies themselves as being from Toronto. (Although, for all intents and purposes, Pickering is pretty much downtown Toronto.)
The beauty of the Northern French countryside as viewed by train is bested only by the small towns that dot the landscape. A 50-minute train ride brought me into the town of Arras, a small town (at 48,000, slightly larger than Charlottetown) in the Pas-de-Calais department in northern France, approaching the Belgian border. Arras was founded by Belgic tribes and later became an important garrison town for the Roman Empire. The modern form of the town took shape around the Benedictine Abbey of St. Vaast sometime in the 5th century. Situated in the path of pivotal battles of the First World War, Arras was devastated by the bombing and warfare, and much of the original Gothic architecture of the city was destroyed, though much has been restored, making the two large squares, Grande Place and the Place des Héros, along with the imposing town belfry, some of the most picturesque in all of Europe.
At the train station I was met by André, the Visitor Activities Support Officer here in France, and Lauren Johnson, another guide who arrived on the same train. André gave us a brief overview of Arras en route to one of the two houses occupied by guides here in Arras, and gave me a tour of the house that I would be living in. The house at Vauban is a three-storey residence owned by the Government of Canada that is leased to guides during the duration of their stay here in Arras. The ground floor has a small kitchen and pantry (with 3 fridges and a freezer to accommodate all our food and drink), a large living room and dining room, as well as a large back patio area, garage (for bikes and garbage) and laundry facilities. (It also has a toilet in a closet). Upstairs there are, in total, four rooms, two large bathrooms, another toilet closet, and a very odd hallway filled with abnormally large closets. For my three months here, I will be living at Vauban with 6 other guides (split between those four bedrooms), with the additional 7 guides living at a large 3-floor apartment a short distance from here.
Throughout Friday, my co-workers slowly trickled into Arras with each arriving train, so that by that evening, all but two had arrived. We spent Friday night talking and getting to know each other, but as jet-lag set in, all of us crashed early and hard and retired to bed, where most of us stayed until early the following afternoon.
On Saturday I took my first walk alone around Arras, visiting the town squares and the massive Cathédrale Notre-Dame-et-Saint-Vaast d'Arras, which was built on the site of a 1000-year old Cathedral in 1833, after the original basilica was destroyed in the French Revolution. Over the course of the day, Jenna and Sahar, the last two components of our 14-member team, arrived in Arras. The full roster congregated at Vauban for some additional introductions and an animated game of Sociables. And so, along with seven Ontarians*, one Newfie, a Nova Scotian, a Manitoban, an Albertan, a British Columbian and an army brat from all over (but primarily from Ottawa), I headed out on the town in Arras.
*I feel it important to note here that while there are seven Ontarians in our group, not one of them identifies themselves as being from Toronto. (Although, for all intents and purposes, Pickering is pretty much downtown Toronto.)
Sunday, January 23, 2011
The Vimy Shuffle - Part I
There is a time and place for changes of pace, and as I fought through the tedium of third-year law this past semester, I felt one was inevitable. Thankfully, I was presented with an amazing opportunity to apply to work as a guide for the Federal Government at Vimy Ridge and Beaumont-Hamel in Northern France, educating visitors on Canada's (and Newfoundland's) contributions and sacrifices during the Great War. It was certainly a chance that was too good to pass up. And so, after an interview process, a request to take a hiatus from law school, and a lengthy visa application process, I found myself standing in line at Charles de Gaulle International in Paris, clearing customs after a long flight where I had accrued all of 30 minutes of sleep, ate the typical airline microwaved chicken dinner and had lost six hours somewhere over the Atlantic.
"Do you like McGill Law?" a lady beside me queried in French, gesturing towards my red McGill hoodie. "Ummm. It's alright." I replied, mustering as positive a reaction as I could in regards to the institution that had helped facilitate much of my aforementioned tedium. We talked about McGill, Montreal, the French language, Acadians, PEI and so forth, as the line slowly snaked towards the sole customs officer. France may have the most ridiculously lax customs process that I have ever seen. After barely looking at each passport, the guard stamped his approval, and each traveler was unleashed on France on their own recognizance without so much as a bag search, metal detector scan or even a question. After a train ride and a crash course in the metro system, I stumbled into St. Christopher's Hostel, claimed my bunk bed, and effortlessly slipped into sleep.
At 5:00 the next morning, however, I was deep in the throes of a bout of jet-lag, and was strongly regretting my mid-day nap. The smell and snores emanating from my bunk mate below certainly didn't help either. Relief from my insomnia and headache finally came at around 6:00 and after two hours of sleep, I promised myself that I would stay awake all day and try to reset my circadian rhythm as soon as possible. I spent the morning reading up on Vimy Ridge and the Battle of the Somme, before falling asleep by accident for a couple hours in the afternoon. At around 17:30 I headed out into Paris to visit Notre Dame and meet up with a friend.
Cathédrale Notre-Dame de Paris towers over the edge of the Seine on the Île de la Cité in Paris. Construction of the French Gothic Cathedral began on the former site of the first Christian church in France, Saint Etienne, in 1163 and was not completely finished until 1345. The impressive, humbling edifice is famed for its stained glass, and attracts 13 million visitors each year, more than even the Eiffel Tower or the Louvres. Although I had already visited the church in 2007, I was still staggered by its grandeur. This grandeur was heightened as they ushered visitors out and turned off the lights to the exhibits for the beginning of evening vespers and Mass. Complete with clouds of incense and the Latin chants of the choir, the stately basilica is all the more incredible when clothed in the ceremony and celebration for which it was designed.
My next stop was to meet up with Thomas Vignal, a native of Paris and one-time exchange student to UPEI. Having met on the plane from Montreal to Charlottetown, I was the first Islander Thomas has met on his trip, so it seemed fitting to be able to spend a few hours with him and his mother during my first full day in France. He met me at the steps of Charles Michel metro, a short walk from the apartment shared by him and his mother. We spent the evening enjoying a magnificent meal prepared by his mother, and talking about everything from great sites to visit in France, to old memories at the Wave. I was especially thankful that the cheese Thomas' mother served after the tremendous meal was, mercifully, mild enough to suit even my unsophisticated palate.
As I laid down to sleep, more or less on schedule for my new circadian rhythm, I tried not to psyche myself up too much for the following day, one that would take me north to Arras and my new home for the next three months.
"Do you like McGill Law?" a lady beside me queried in French, gesturing towards my red McGill hoodie. "Ummm. It's alright." I replied, mustering as positive a reaction as I could in regards to the institution that had helped facilitate much of my aforementioned tedium. We talked about McGill, Montreal, the French language, Acadians, PEI and so forth, as the line slowly snaked towards the sole customs officer. France may have the most ridiculously lax customs process that I have ever seen. After barely looking at each passport, the guard stamped his approval, and each traveler was unleashed on France on their own recognizance without so much as a bag search, metal detector scan or even a question. After a train ride and a crash course in the metro system, I stumbled into St. Christopher's Hostel, claimed my bunk bed, and effortlessly slipped into sleep.
At 5:00 the next morning, however, I was deep in the throes of a bout of jet-lag, and was strongly regretting my mid-day nap. The smell and snores emanating from my bunk mate below certainly didn't help either. Relief from my insomnia and headache finally came at around 6:00 and after two hours of sleep, I promised myself that I would stay awake all day and try to reset my circadian rhythm as soon as possible. I spent the morning reading up on Vimy Ridge and the Battle of the Somme, before falling asleep by accident for a couple hours in the afternoon. At around 17:30 I headed out into Paris to visit Notre Dame and meet up with a friend.
Cathédrale Notre-Dame de Paris towers over the edge of the Seine on the Île de la Cité in Paris. Construction of the French Gothic Cathedral began on the former site of the first Christian church in France, Saint Etienne, in 1163 and was not completely finished until 1345. The impressive, humbling edifice is famed for its stained glass, and attracts 13 million visitors each year, more than even the Eiffel Tower or the Louvres. Although I had already visited the church in 2007, I was still staggered by its grandeur. This grandeur was heightened as they ushered visitors out and turned off the lights to the exhibits for the beginning of evening vespers and Mass. Complete with clouds of incense and the Latin chants of the choir, the stately basilica is all the more incredible when clothed in the ceremony and celebration for which it was designed.
My next stop was to meet up with Thomas Vignal, a native of Paris and one-time exchange student to UPEI. Having met on the plane from Montreal to Charlottetown, I was the first Islander Thomas has met on his trip, so it seemed fitting to be able to spend a few hours with him and his mother during my first full day in France. He met me at the steps of Charles Michel metro, a short walk from the apartment shared by him and his mother. We spent the evening enjoying a magnificent meal prepared by his mother, and talking about everything from great sites to visit in France, to old memories at the Wave. I was especially thankful that the cheese Thomas' mother served after the tremendous meal was, mercifully, mild enough to suit even my unsophisticated palate.
As I laid down to sleep, more or less on schedule for my new circadian rhythm, I tried not to psyche myself up too much for the following day, one that would take me north to Arras and my new home for the next three months.
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