UGDSB students travel to Vimy Ridge to mark 100th anniversary of historic battle
March 30, 2017
GUELPH, Ontario – This March Break, students and teachers in the Upper Grand DSB travelled to Europe on a Canadian Battlefields Tour. Staff and students visited many places where Canadians had fought and died during the First World War and Second World War.
At Centennial CVI, 29 CCVI students, along with their history teachers, travelled to France. The motivation for the trip was to mark the 100th anniversary of the Battle of Vimy Ridge, honouring the role that Canada played in the historic WWI battle.
Staff said it was a surreal experience being at the Canadian National Vimy Memorial and seeing the craters that still exist 100 years later, with grass and trees growing over them.
They also visited a museum and battlegrounds at Passchendaele, Ypres and Somme, as well as several soldier grave sites where fallen Canadians are buried including Wimereux Cemetery, where Lieutenant Colonel John McCrae was buried with full military honours. The trip also included several significant sites from WWII, such as the Bergen Op Cemetery and Juno Beach.
Twenty students from Guelph CVI, along with GCVI staff, also visited Vimy over the March Break, as part of the school’s trip to France and Germany.
The group visited the monument at Vimy, as well as cemeteries and walked the tunnels. Staff said the experience was incredibly moving, as many students had family connections to the First and Second World Wars.
This April, more UGDSB schools will be travelling to Vimy Ridge to attend the 100th Vimy Ridge ceremony.
Students, staff and family members from Centre Dufferin DHS, Orangeville DSS, Westside SS and Wellington Heights SS will travel to Normandy, Vimy Ridge and Paris. In preparation, students are currently researching veterans and will be visiting those veterans’ gravesites at Cabaret Rouge near the town of Souchez, France.
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