Pilgrimage to Vimy Ridge

https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:HM_King_Edward_VIII_unveiling_the_figure_of_Canada_on_the_Vimy_Ridge_Memorial.jpg

This week marks the Battle of Vimy Ridge, a battle for a German-held elevated ridge on the Western Front. Initially captured by the Germans in the opening months of the war in 1914, it had withstood a number of Allied attempts to recapture it. However, in April 1917 Canadians stormed the ridge, and, much to the surprise of many who were used to years of futile frontal assaults, they quickly captured it.
 
The victory of Vimy came to be seen as sign that Canada had grown up and could act on par with the other nations of the world. Soon it eclipsed and even replaced the Battle of Paardeberg (1900) as Canada’s “nation-building war” (after all, who has heard of the Battle of Paardeberg?).[1]
 
In the post years there was a massive building project to memorialize and make sense of the war, and part of the Canadian focus was to build a monument in Europe to one of its most well-known victories; or perhaps the monument made it so well known, since the Canadian veterans of the Battle of Amiens (1918) certainly could claim that their victory was at least equally impressive.
 
The monument was unveiled in 1936, and that unveiling started a tradition of pilgrimage to remember the feat, honour the lost, comfort the grieving, and make sense of the carnage.
 
Recently I was browsing through the Presbyterian Record and came across the article below. It details a Canadian pilgrimage to the opening. It provides us today with a sense of how the monument was understood a few generations ago and also provides a sense of what was intended for us today when we make our own pilgrimage to that hallowed site.

[1] https://www.gordonlheath.com/blog/the-battle-of-paardeberg-canadas-vimy-before-vimy