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

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…

Jul 23rd The Last Post

After a second very emotional day we arrived at our once again shockingly nice hotel in Ypres, Belgium.  The hotel was only a few minute walk from the main market square, so we walked over to explore the market and visit the In Flanders’ Fields Museum.   

Belgium was a neutral country for both World Wars, and in both World Wars they were invaded and decimated.  Cities in Flanders were reduced to mud and vast sections of the country became an unrecognizable wasteland.  As such, Belgium has a very different take on the wars… in Belgium museums there is no glory, only sadness.  The In Flanders Fields museum does an incredibly effective job at sharing the horror and loss. 

Another highlight to the In Flanders Field Museum is climbing the historic clock tower to experience the best view in Flanders.

After the museum we worked our way back to the hotel to change into our formal uniforms before our walk to the Menin Gate for the Last Post

Every evening at 8pm precisely, the “Last Post” has been sounded since 1928 under the imposing arches of the Menin Gate. This memorial shaped like a Roman triumphal arch displays the names of 54.896 soldiers of the then British empire who went missing in action.  Just being at the memorial is humbling, but when you consider that this community has shut down the busiest bridge crossing in town every single day for a century to say thank you is beyond words.  What we do once a year on Remembrance Day, they do every single day.  

After spending some time exploring the monument, we worked our way to the street and secured what we figured was a decent spot.  Not long after arriving the volunteers at the Menin Gate spotted our Scout uniforms and ushered us into a place of honour behind the buglers… wow!  While we were lining up waiting for the ceremony to begin I was suddenly taken aside by a volunteer in uniform and asked to do a reading at the ceremony!  Obviously I accepted without hesitation.  What a great moment for Scouting 🙂

After the ceremony we formed a horseshoe under the gate so we could say thank you with our own ceremony with O Canada and the Ode to Newfoundland.  We were all still so caught up from the emotions of the day and just by being surrounded with the 54.896 names of the missing in fine print all around us that we focused simply on getting the words out without breaking down.  We were so focused that we didn’t notice the giant crowd that had gathered around us until they broke out into applause after Devin dismissed us.  So many people stopped to welcome us, and thank us as Canadians for coming.  

It was a reflective walk back to the hotel where we enjoyed a late supper before a few of us went back out on the town for some night time exploration.  

Despite the town being well lit and beautiful at night, pretty much everything was closed.  After much searching we finally found one store that was open…

Not quite as bad as it looks as the Scouts bought SNACKS, it just happens they sell alcohol pretty much everywhere in Europe.  The Scouts did however buy a nice bottle of “wine”…

Great end to a great day!

Jul 23rd In Flanders Fields…

In Flanders fields the poppies blow
    Between the crosses, row on row,
  That mark our place; and in the sky
  The larks, still bravely singing, fly
Scarce heard amid the guns below.

We are the Dead. Short days ago
We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,
  Loved and were loved, and now we lie
      In Flanders fields.

Take up our quarrel with the foe:
To you from failing hands we throw
  The torch; be yours to hold it high.
  If ye break faith with us who die
We shall not sleep, though poppies grow
      In Flanders fields.

John McCrae

While Carl was regaling us with the history of the Essex Farm he received a call about his father… who’s health had taken a sharp turn for the worse…  In one breath Carl told us his dad was dying, and in the next he continued on about how great Canada is… as a Troop, we told Carl to go home, and we return to Ypres to take care of ourselves for the evening.  Family first! Carl is “one of us” and we take care of our own 🙂

Jul 23rd Thousands of Graves Later…

Fresh from our experience at Vimy Ridge, Carl takes us on a bit of a detour so we can drive past a German Cemetery… each black cross represents the burial of at least two German soldiers who never made it home… and the crosses go on for what seems like eternity… there simply were no winners of the so called “great war”… 

Arriving at the Cabaret-Rouge Cemetery was an overwhelming experience… 7,650 graves… a truly incomprehensible number of graves… of people… lost… the worst part is that we knew this was NOT our biggest cemetery… that would be tomorrow…  here lies the Canadians lost at Vimy…

Jul 23rd 14 days…

After a VERY early wake-up we loaded up and hit the road for Vimy Ridge.  The memorial at Vimy Ridge serves as Canada’s monument to the 11,169 Canadians who never came home from the first World War but have no graves as their bodies were never recovered.  This is our monument to the missing heroes who were never properly put to rest.  The Battle of Vimy Ridge was the first time all three divisions of the Canadian Armed Forces fought together under a Canadian Commander, and the Canadian victory at Vimy Ridge distinguished Canada as a nation apart from United Kingdom for the first time.  So going in to this day, we knew it was going to be another very big day.

When we arrived at Vimy Ridge we were split in to two groups by the Canadian tour guides, so one group could explore the trenches while the other descended into the catacombs.  

Painstaking effort was made by the Canadian government to preserve the battlefield as best as possible.  The trenches that remain were ACTUAL trenches from the First World War, but the sand bags were replaced with cement bags to ensure they would be preserved.  The land around the trenches remains deeply pot marked from artillery fire and is in fact still inaccessible due to the danger of unexploded ordinance.  

The catacombs at Vimy Ridge are truly mind-blowing!  This immense complex of tunnels and chambers has been preserved and immediately takes you back 100 years to what it must have been like for the soldiers preparing for the raid.  At one point in the tour we get to this decent dormitory bunk room – hardly “nice” except for in comparison to what sleeping in the trenches would have been like.  Our guide explains that the dorm was for the messengers.  You see, in WWI all communication between the various players on the field of battle where made by messengers running sheets of paper around with orders on them.  This of course made the messengers the ideal target to disrupt an army’s effectiveness, so messengers had an average lifespan of just 14 days.  14 days.  The position was so dangerous that you could not be ordered to be a messenger, you had to volunteer.  The guide went on to explain that there was a never ending line of volunteers… the war was so hellish that people lined up to take a job in which they knew at least their war would end within 14 days… wow… there are no words…

So for the most part I’m going to need to let the pictures tell the story as words cannot even come close to describing what it felt like to visit the Vimy Memorial… The Canadian approach to reflecting the “Great War” was different than a lot of our allies – our Vimy Ridge Memorial tells a story of suffering, loss, and profound sadness.  This is not a monument of victory, it’s a giant monument of loss.  Every aspect of the Vimy Memorial speaks to a nation in grief, not a nation reveling in victory.  

When Hitler occupied France in World War II the Nazi troops went out of their way to vandalize and destroy the Allied monuments from World War I.  This was basically the standing order throughout France, until Hitler came upon Vimy Ridge.  Even Hitler was so moved by the Vimy Ridge monument that he ordered it protected by his personal guard.  “Hitler Approved” is not a seal we want, but it does go to show the profound power of this memorial that even the Nazi’s couldn’t bring themselves to deface it.

Vimy is simply something that every Canadian should experience…

Jul 22nd Caribou Racing and Arras

Carl was VERY time conscious on our trip, so he made it clear at Beaumont-Hamel that if we wanted our extra time there we better be ready to RUN through our remaining tour of the caribou, so run we did!  On our way to Arras we had a VERY brief stop at the caribou in Gueudecourt…

Learned about a very unpopular farming chore here in France… cleaning up the unexploded shells in the field and taking them to the road… seriously!

And then a very quick sprint to the caribou at Monchy-le-Preux…

Despite our best efforts we just could not work in our final caribou in France at Masnieres, but it was totally worth it to have the extra time we had at Beaumont-Hamel.  

As we arrived at our hotel in Arras, we were once again pleasantly surprised by the accommodations.  Although not as fancy as the place in Dieppe, it was still a lot nicer than we expected.  Our supper was at a nearby restaurant… couple funny moments at supper that are better shared in person than online… including an incident with a horse… and a picture Scouter Gerry wanted us to show his wife… but anyway…

After supper a few of us went out to explore Arras, and then after the Scouts went to bed, Carl took some of the Scouters on a later tour out to the town square to see the historic lights turn on… they didn’t turn on… another good story though for another day 😉

Jul 22nd Better Than the Best

When we arrived at Beaumont-Hamel, in a lot of ways it was like coming home.  Seeing the Newfoundland and Labrador Flag waving alongside the French and Canadian Flags was pretty fantastic.  We stopped for a picnic lunch (first time in Europe that we didn’t eat lunch on the bus) and then made our way to the visitors’ centre. 

Hunter was a “Scub” and we were planning to invest him in front of the great Caribou here at Beaumont-Hamel.  When I mentioned our plan to Carl, he cautioned me that this was a VERY busy place, and it was unlikely we’d be able to stay at the caribou long enough for the ceremony.  He encouraged me to ask the staff, which I did.  Here response was one I won’t soon forget “You’re all from Newfoundland – you’re home now.  Do as you please”. The experience is not one that I can really put to words, but I think the pictures do a pretty good job…

After the tour it was time for Hunter’s investiture.  Adding one more member to the world’s largest peace movement seemed an appropriate tribute to those who died here at the Battle of the Somme.  It was a tough ceremony to get through, and very few of us had dry eyes by the end of it, but we were all immensely proud to be Scouts in that moment.  Quite the crowd ended up forming around us, but we hardly noticed.

With that done we had one more ceremony to conduct, and one that we knew would be even more difficult.  Our beloved Group Commissioner, Scouter Ed “Baloo” Thorne, had planned to join us on this trip, and we knew he was most looking forward to this moment, standing together at Beaumont-Hamel.  Our youth asked to leave behind a Baloo crest so that he could at least be there with us in spirit.  This became a theme going forward, and thanks to the youth there are Baloo crests at memorials in France, Belgium and the Netherlands.

We left Baumont-Hamel in silence, lost in thoughts and reflecting on our experience.  Hard to imagine there was still a LOT more left to experience this day!