4th Grand Falls Scouts & Venturers2019 World Jamboree and the 2019 European Adventure!

Jul 25th “Thank You For Everything…”

For our final stop in our profoundly life-changing battlefields tour through both World Wars we ended up at the Dutch Liberation Museum. The perfect end to our journey, and the perfect introduction to our stay in the Netherlands.

The museum itself was fantastic. Great exhibits, very informative, and exceptionally well done. As great as it was my memory of the museum is really filled with the final exhibit we visited. On my way out of the museum I was called over by another Scouter to the atrium, where there was a single white tree in the middle of the room with paper maple leaves hanging from it. As I drew closer I realized that each and every leaf was a message of thanks to Canada. To say it was moving is a gross understatement as the tree brought us all, youth and adults, to tears. After more than 70 years the Dutch are still saying thank you to our soldiers who gave everything for their freedom; there is a LOT we as Canadians can learn from our Dutch friends. This was the best possible end for this portion of our journey. I will never forget it.

Jul 25th The Least We Could Do

To say it was “blowin’ a gale” when we arrived at the Groesbeek Canadian War Cemetery would be a vast understatement as the Netherlands was being hit with the worst summer storm the country had seen in a century. Groesbeek is the final resting place for 2,619 Canadians who died liberating the Netherlands in WWII.

After leaving the bus we immediately sought shelter under a covered memorial. Carl, yelling to be heard over the wind, told us the story of the Dutch liberation and the surrender of the Nazis to the Canadian General. Given how intense the storm was we were all content with skipping our usual ceremony at the Cross of Sacrifice and instead make a break for the bus… but then we saw the flags…

Each individual grave had at least one small Canadian flag planted before it. These are the same sort of flags that are given out here on Canada Day, and are certainly not meant to last. It occurred to us that means that these flags would need to be regularly replaced, and just the level of care and respect the Dutch have given and continue to give our fallen soldiers moved us beyond words. So we made our way to the Cross of Sacrifice to pay our respects… truly the least we could do.

So although it was so windy it was nearly impossible for the Scouts to keep hold of the flags, we proudly sang O Canada… as the wreaths blew by, the the rain pelted us, and the storm raged on. One of my favourite memories – so 4th Grand Falls, lol!

Jul 25th The Storm…

For the first time in our European Adventure we woke up to rain. It was a very gray, very wet start to the day, and it only got grayer and wetter as we made our way to the Netherlands.

The rain slowed down a bit by the time we arrived at Camp Vught in the Netherlands. The camp hadn’t opened yet by the time we arrived, so Scouter Herman took that time to give us a guided tour of the woods surrounding the infamous Camp.

Turns out Scouter Herman is a super-Scouter and spent time teaching the kids about uses for various trees and plants as well as how to navigate the Dutch trail system. It was like being on an episode of Survivorman, lol!

The tone changed quickly though as we approached a strange clearing with a large wall behind a trench.

Turns out this was the spot the guards at the camp would take the prisoners for mass executions after the D-Day landings. All of a sudden we were reminded, like a slap in the face, what this stop was all about… the walk back to the camp was much less jovial.

Although Camp Vucht was not a death camp, it was the only work camp outside of Germany that was operated directly by the SS so it had a reputation of being the worst of the worst. We knew in advance that this experience would simply not be for everyone, so youth had the option to sit this one out and instead take a walking tour of Vucht.

The rest of us made our way into Camp Vught… I really have a lot to say about this experience, but I just can’t seem to put it to text. To say it was a powerful experience is an understatement. Words just can’t do it justice…

I will say that if you go to Camp Vught, make sure you get a guided tour. It was the stories from our guide more than what we saw that truly stuck with us. Camp Vught is a terrible, horrible and profoundly sad place, but it was a very important part of our overall experience as it really drove home why so many Canadians gave their lives. This is the why – this is what we fought to stop.

Jul 24th Calm Before the Storm…

After leaving Courtrai the whole mood of the trip changed to one of building anticipation… this would be our last night in hotel before we begin 10 days at the Haarlem Jamborette! Time to get in as much sleep as possible, lol!

The drive to Leuven was one of our longer stretches and seemed a bit out of place after such an intense start to our day.

Google Streetview warned us in advance that this hotel was going to be MUCH less nice than what we had grown used to, and also that the neighbourhood was a bit sketchier… but thankfully it seems that we were working with old data as the hotel was incredible!

Early in our decision to take on this epic European adventure I was contacted by Scouter Herman from the Netherlands who served as a HUGE help though our planning. Scouter Herman helped arrange our gear, gave us advice on our itinerary, and helped ensure we all stayed super excited by posting frequently on our Facebook page. Well if Scouter Herman hadn’t already done more than enough for our group, he actually took a train to Leuven to meet up with us for our last leg of the adventure! He thought it was important for us to have a Dutch tour guide as we journeyed into the Netherlands. Scouter Herman hit the ground running with our troop immediately offering to lead a tour of Leuven.

So QUITE the adventure was had in Leuven! Unfortunately I can’t add much to it though as I wasn’t there, LOL! Scouter Rhonda, Lawrence, Amanda & Tracey had embarked on a mission to the laundromat and Scouter Erica, Gerry and Herman were with the youth going on the tour… by the time Scouter Dan and I made it downstairs we realized that we were the “stay-behind Scouters”… oh well, you win some you lose some!

Jul 24th End of the Trail

And just like that we arrived at our final Caribou – the Newfoundland Memorial in Courtrai which marks the furthest position achieved by the Newfoundland Regiment in Belgium. This also marked our final World War I memorial and closed that chapter of our adventure. It was a bittersweet moment as we were sad to close one adventure, while at the same time getting excited about getting closer to the Haarlem Jamborette.

For one last time, we gathered in horseshoe around a great caribou to give thanks…

After our ceremony we called up Carl, our amazing tour guide, so we could officially invest him as an honourary Scout and member of the 4th Grand Falls

As we arrived at Courtrai, Ben asked if he and Devin could have a moment in horseshoe before we left. Well Ben had been working on something for the last few days on the bus, and the results of his efforts blew us all away… not a one of us got back on the bus with dry eyes…

Baloo would have been so very proud 🙂

Jul 24th Belgian’s LOVE Witches

So this charming lady we met at the Passchendaele Museum was truly just the tip of the iceberg to the Belgians’ love of witches! Just check out the bizarre assortment of witches we encountered between Crest Farm and our final Caribou in Courtrai!

Jul 24th Duvel

The Crest Farm Memorial commemorates the 16,000 Canadian soldiers who perished while taking the Passchendaele Ridge and marking the furthest advance of the Canadian army in the first World War.

We stopped here for reflection and also to have a nice picnic lunch on what turned out to be another nice day.

I must say though… my favourite memory from Crest Farm is one that can only be shared with the Europe Scouters that experienced it, as well as our generous bus driver Ettienne… there’s even a great picture of that memory… but not one I can post… guess you had to be there 😉

Jul 24th Their Name Liveth For Evermore

On this adventure we have seen many, many graves, but truly nothing can prepare you for the scale of Tyne Cot. Within this massive cemetery, the largest Commonwealth cemetery in the world, are buried more soldiers than there are people living in Gander, NL! 11,965 soldiers lay here in the endless rows of graves…

Despite the enormity of the cemetery, if every single soldier lost in the first World War were to be buried in the same graveyard, the cemetery would have to be 811 times larger than Tyne Cot… imagine… this epic memorial represents just 0.1% of total soldiers lost to the war…

As you can see from the expressions on our faces… this fact was not lost to the youth…

We were all pretty quiet as we left Tyne Cot, but there was a moment of levity on the way out. You see, quite a few youth were in need of a bathroom break (the bathroom on the bus has become inaccessible days ago – another story, lol!), but it turns out the bathroom was coin operated. You needed to insert Euros in order for the turn-style to move and let you in… well seeing as we were collectively short on change, we got to play a game involving how many Scouts can you cram into a turn-style at once, lol! Turns out… quite a few 😉

Jul 24th Brooding Soldier

So on our way to Tyne Cot, Carl our amazing tough guide took us on another cool detour. Carl explained that the St. Julien memorial has always been his personal favourite as it’s a soldiers’ memorial for soldiers. It so adeptly conveys the feelings of sadness and mourning of a soldier mourning their comrades. Apparently this was the alternate design for Vimy Ridge before it was decided to go with the grieving Mother Canada. The St. Julien Memorial sits on the location that 2,000 Canadian soldiers perished in the first ever gas attack. Given the horrors of chemical warfare, perhaps this soldier is actually grieving for us all…

Jul 24th Falls the Shadow

Although there are no pictures of it, I have awesome memories of Scouter Amanda getting a Belgian Waffle for breakfast in Ypres before we left, lol! ‘magine! A Belgian Waffle here in Belgium! Anyway, so it was a bit of a grey day as we left Ypres to make our way to the Passchendaele Museum.

Just like with the “In Flander Fields Museum”, the Belgian people make a point of communicating the horror and pointlessness of war emphasizing that there can be no glory and there are never winners. The museum is incredible – definitely the best since Caen! The exhibits were hands on and very detailed. Scouts were able to try things on, pick things up, and really experience the exhibits.

After going through the seriously impressive galleries we end up at a staircase which leads us down into a recreation of the Passchendaele tunnels used in the first World War – AMAZING!

So we were already blown away by this museum, but after we emerged from the tunnels we walked into a fully recreated trench battlefield! The care to detail was incredible!

Although the entire museum was excellent, what really sticks with me more than anything else is the final exhibit in the museum which is an art installation titled “Falls the Shadow”… just a room full of arms reaching for air through the red mud of Passchendaele… true horror and loss. It was a quiet walk away from this one…