On the ridge

Not once, not twice, but three times we have been to Vimy Ridge. We've seen it in each season except winter. And it's still awesome.

View from the front of the memorial. It was a gorgeous day and you could see for miles.

Yep, it's high.


The memorial smells like sheep. The use the sheep to trim the grass as it isn't a big deal if the sheep steps on an explosive.





When they restored the monument, they recarved a lot of the names. According to a video we watched in the interpretive centre, the stonecarvers came to treat each letter with such reverence.

On our tour of the tunnels the first time around, the guide pointed this out. The story goes that while waiting to attack above ground, some industrious soldier carved this out of the soft chalk. We didn't get a proper snapshot then. This time around, we were in larger group so we were herded around the tunnels quite quickly. Luckily, we both kept an eye out for this, ducking into each room.


There's a small band of metal that terminates at either end in a maple leaf stone.

I'm not sure what this statue is about in Lille. We went from London to Lille, and then Lille to Vimy. It was a French holiday so nobody was around in the morning.

Look at how skillful the stone is carved to resemble cloth.




Even in the icon, the figure of Canada mourning is kept. They could have just designed the icon to have two columns but I guess they felt it was important to have the figure there too.


George Devloo would pick up stranded Canadians at the Vimy rail station. See, the village Vimy is near the monument but it is way more convenient to go to Arras. He would drive wayward tourists and student guides to the memorial out of the kindness of his heart. He died last year. The photo was in the interpretive centre and the text came from an MP's speech in the House of Commons.


We took a lot of photos. I guess to prove that we were there.