Lest We Forget…

Tomorrow is Canada Day, a day when Canadians celebrate the union of ten provinces and three territories into one nation. However, in one province July 1 is also Memorial Day.

On July 1, 1916, the 1st day of the Battle of the Somme in WW l, over 800 young men of the Newfoundland Regiment were ordered over the top. The next morning less than 100 Newfoundlanders answered roll call. The then British Colony of Newfoundland had lost a large percentage of its very young men.

In gratitude for Newfoundland’s sacrifice, France set aside the small portion of the battlefield where the Newfoundlander’s were lost as a Memorial Park in Beaumont-Hamel.

The symbol of the Newfoundland Regiment is the caribou. Six of these statues where created and placed in locations where the Newfoundland Regiment had served. This one stands in the Beaumont-Hamel Newfoundland Memorial.

Newfoundland was the last province to join Canada, in 1949. They celebrate Canada Day, but it is also their Memorial Day.