Remembrance Day 2018

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THANK YOU VETERANS & FAMILIES

WE SHALL NOT FORGET – EKC REMEMBERS THOSE THAT SACRIFICED ON OUR BEHALF f Remembrance Day Hours f Cranbrook and Fernie branches closed Saturday Nov. 10 f Sparwood, Elkford and Cranbrook Commercial branches closed Monday Nov. 12 f All branches return to regular hours Tuesday Nov. 13 EKCCU.COM CR ANBROOK • ELKFORD • FERNIE • SPARWOOD

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Remembrance Day – The Free Press

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The poppy: an enduring symbol of remembrance November 11 is when we pause to reflect on the men and women who served and who are currently serving our country.

On this date, Canadians are called upon to pay tribute to the 2.3 million compatriots who, throughout our nation’s history, risked their lives defending our country, and the 118,000 who lost their lives.

The tradition of wearing poppies — or replicas of poppies — on Remembrance Day has its roots in the poem “In Flanders Fields,” written during the First World War by Canadian Lieutenant-Colonel John McCrae. The poem, which became widely known across the Commonwealth of Nations and in the United States, speaks of the poppies that thrived on fields in Belgium and Northern France where some of the war’s bloodiest battles were fought.

After the publication of McCrae’s verses, poppies took on symbolic meaning, representing at once remembrance, rebirth, hope and the blood spilt in war.

Today, the poppies we wear on November 11 help us to be mindful of the sacrifice of the brave Canadian soldiers of this war and every other armed conflict in our nation’s history.

The Royal Canadian Legion, who through the sale of these poppies provides support for veterans, suggests that the flower be worn on the left lapel of our garments, close to our hearts.

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.

Remembrance Day Services Sunday, November 11

Come out and honour our veterans Sparwood, BC Royal Canadian Legion Branch #81

Lest We Forget

Elkford Remembrance Day Service 10:00 am 10:45 am 11:00 am 11:30 am

Alliance Church Service Procession to Cenotaph at District of Elkford Office (816 Michel Road) Cenotaph Ceremony Refreshments at the Elkford Community Conference Centre

10:00 a.m.

Church Service, Seniors drop-in centre at 101 Pine Avenue 10:45 a.m.

Parade formation after service 10:55 a.m.

Cenotaph Ceremony located at the Sparwood Public Library March back to the seniors drop-in centre, hot chocolate for the participating youth.

A hot meal at Michel-Natal Branch 81, 117 Centennial Square.

Centennial Square – “Bells of Peace” historic church bell will toll 100 times at sunset to commemorate 100 years since the end of WWI in honor of the fallen.

Remembering those who served TOM SHYPITKA, MLA KOOTENAY EAST

302 535 Victoria Ave N. Cranbrook, BC Office: 250-417-6022 Tom.Shypitka.mla@leg.bc.ca

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Where do your poppy dollars go?

Wearing a poppy is a good way to not only pay tribute to Canada’s veterans but also to give back to them. The poppies sold every year in the weeks leading up to Remembrance Day are provided by the Royal Canadian Legion, who use the money collected to provide assistance to veterans. Here are some of the excellent uses to which this organization puts donations collected for Remembrance Day. Veteran transition programs For many veterans, returning to civilian life proves to be a challenge. They confront estranged connections with friends and family, feelings of isolation, difficulties adapting to new workplaces and mental illnesses like depression and post-traumatic stress disorder.

The Royal Canadian Legion helps fund the Veterans Transition Network, a program that assists veterans through the tumultuous period after leaving active duty, providing them with helpful tools and resources as well as a welcoming community.

Financial assistance and housing for veterans Some veterans have an especially difficult

time adjusting to civilian life and end up homeless or at risk of homelessness. In addition to providing financial support to such individuals, the Legion supports numerous outreach programs, food banks, drop-in cen­tres and meals-on-wheels programs.

Medical support The Legion provides funds for medical equipment, medical training and medical treatment focused on caring for injured and infirm veterans. It also helps pay for accessibility modifications that assist veterans with disabilities.

Educational bursaries The Legion grants bursaries to children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren of veterans who require finan­c ial assistance to be able to pursue a post-secondary education.

Remembrance activities With the help of our donations, the Legion finances activities that shine a light on our past and commemorate our veterans.

REMEMBRANCE DAY SERVICE Fernie, BC

•10:40 am Parade marches to Cenotaph •10:55 am Cenotaph Service

•11:00 am 2 Minute Wave of Silence begins •11:45 am Parade forms up and marches back to Legion

On the 11th hour of the 11th day of the 11th month, we shall remember them.

An Ecumenical service will follow in the Legion Lounge

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Remembrance Day – The Free Press

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The Legacy of Emanuel Hahn

For Your SACRIFICE For Our FREEDOM

THANK YOU! You answered the call.

We are forever grateful.

The magnificent granite sentinel to Fernie’s war dead. - John Kinnear

By John Kinnear The first time I ever beheld the Fernie cenotaph statue I was in awe. I had never seen anything memorial-wise quite like it.

His contemplative, quiet and somber appearance evokes reverence and respect in all who behold him. On observing this bareheaded soldier with helmet slung over his shoulder, head downturned and left hand resting on a cross, I felt the sorrow. The sculptor was brilliant in his presentation.

Cherished Memories Funeral Services & Cherished Memories Crematorium Phone: 250-423-7944 891 4th Ave, Fernie BC

Email: cmfs@shaw.ca www.cherishedmemoriesfs.com

This iconic tribute to our war dead provided a defining moment of inspiration for me. It was there I observed an incident that forever changed me and brought the desire to write to surface. It occurred on a bitter cold Armistice Day back in 1995 when a young piper-intraining at the ceremony faltered badly in his rendition of Amazing Grace. With his pipe reeds frozen he apologetically stepped back from the soldier and marched from the grounds, head down. I keenly felt his disappointment. But then later after the crowd had dispersed he returned with thawed pipes and shouldered his instrument, and for just the monument and myself, played the song with gusto. This remarkable show of determination haunted me for some time until I finally put my thoughts down on paper.

I entitled it: Determination Prevails for the Courageous.

Sculptor, visionary and naturalized Canadian citizen Emanuel Hahn» - courtesy of Wikipedia

Canadian artists and sculptors. They are among the very best and most diverse in our country and the Fernie cenotaph, in its spectacular setting, is one of the finest.

The gifted sculptor that crafted the Fernie cenotaph was a German born master by the name of Emanuel Hahn. His story carries a lesson to all of us about perseverance amid bias and narrow-mindedness. Hahn was only seven when he immigrated to Canada with his family in 1888. On the very day he was old enough he became a naturalized Canadian citizen.

Emanuel Hahn studied art and design in Toronto and eventually returned to Germany for more training at the Stuttgart Art Academy where he apprenticed with a sculptor. Back in Canada from 1908 to 1912 Hahn worked as a studio assistant for the brilliant Canadian sculptor Walter Seymour Allward, designer of the magnificent Vimy Ridge memorial. It is interesting to note that Allward eventually bequeathed many of his personal sculpting tools to his protégé Emanuel Hahn.

There are no less than 7,500 memorials across Canada that pay respect to those lost in wars. There are pyramids, cairns, plaques, stelae, shafts, crosses and obelisks. And then there are the statues, just over 400 of them, half of which are made of Carrara marble from Italy. About 80 are either bronze or stone statues designed and built in Canada by In 1906 Hahn also began working on contract

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The Legacy of Emanuel Hahn for the Thomson Monument Company and by 1919 was its chief designer. He held that position for over 40 years. It is interesting to note that Thomson’s advertisements featured many of his designs, but they rarely mentioned him by name after the end of the war lest his German roots lose them business.

Jane and Kathleen. They were 14 months and six weeks old respectively and it appears all eleven perished in this disaster. Of the 138 children aboard only four survived.

On July 22, 1922 Sir Arthur Currie, commander of the Canadian Corps in World War One, chose, sponsored and dedicated yet another moving Hahn war memorial at St. Lambert in Quebec.

The statue is of a soldier going full stride running into action with a rifle in his right hand. St. Lambert is directly across the St. Lawrence River from McGill University where Currie was by then the university’s principal. The very first Hahn “going over the top” statue like St. Lambert’s can be found in Summerside, P.E.I.

This position was not entirely unfounded and can be traced back specifically to an incident in 1925 when Hahn’s design for a new monument for the City of Winnipeg won out over 47 other submissions. Shortly after the unanimous awarding to Hahn, an uproar was precipitated by some, who on discovering his German birth, vociferously demanded that award’s withdrawal. The committee unfortunately ceded to their demands and Hahn was paid $500 for his design while the committee moved on to what they considered the next best design.

Another of Hahn’s most revered works, known as “Tommy in Greatcoat,” was completed a year later in Lindsay, Ontario. Once again Hahn returned to the portrayal of a somber figure like Fernie’s silent sentinel. Author MacLeod describes this moving work thusly: “His head bent downward, the soldier rests on his rifle, helmet hanging from his left forearm. His is an essay in pensive, quiet, contemplation. What is he thinking about? The answer is easy to imagine.”

This time the rules specifically dictated that the winning design must come from someone born in Canada or in an Allied Nation.

A creation by Canadian born artist Elizabeth Wyn-Wood was chosen and brought about further controversy and debate. Shortly after choosing her design it was discovered that Emanuel Hahn had trained her and that by the time of the award presentation, was in fact his wife. Once again there was a hue and cry (uproar) and once again the loudest braying resulted in the commission being withdrawn. Neither Hahn nor Wyn-Wood was allowed to design the Winnipeg Cenotaph.

On May 23 of that same year, in front of the Fernie courthouse, Hahn’s lone bareheaded soldier was officially unveiled. Beneath the bowed granite head of this perfect Hahn design are engraved the “books’, the lists of those lost in the Great War. There are a heartbreaking 93 names on two sides of the mount of this stone warrior. Another side carries a list of 20 souls lost in World War Two and a single entry, Vincent Liska, for the Korean War.

This apparently did not affect Hahn’s popularity or acceptance noticeably and he went on to design hundreds of pieces of art across Canada. Returning back to before the Winnipeg story we In his profoundly important documentation of Fernie’s war yearsfind that in 1921 Hahn, who by then was a well established, highly Fernie at War- author Wayne Norton makes note that this unveiling regarded sculptor, was commissioned to create a grieving soldier occurred on the same grounds that not eight years earlier had been Emanuel Hahn carving Tommy in Greatcoat» statue for the town of Westville, Nova Scotia. That beautiful courtesy of Manitoba Historical Society. the place where the internees destined ultimately for the Morrissey bronze was so well received that others across Canada began Internment Camp were first assembled. How ironic that a place serious fundraising for identical versions of it. Another identical where freedom was summarily stripped away should be the very bronze statue exists in Cornwall, Ontario but there are no less than eight more granite carved place where an acknowledgement of the price of freedom would be forever commemorated. versions that were supplied by Thomson’s master craftsman to other communities across the country, including Fernie. The statues are in fact not truly identical and according to author Emanuel Hahn went on to do hundreds of Canadian designs. One need only reach into one’s Alan Livingstone MacLeod’s book: Remembered in Bronze and Stone: “each shows subtle pocket to find a Hahn original. The image of the famous Nova Scotia racing schooner differences from the others.” It is interesting to note that the Westville statue is the only one “Bluenose” on our ten cent piece and the caribou head on the quarter are just a few of his of the 10 that is signed by Hahn. varied coin designs. Hahn also sculpted the profile of Queen Elizabeth II that was used in 1953 on Canada’s coronation stamps.

The list of Hahn’s noted works actually go back as far as 1916 when he carved the profound monument, located at Mount Pleasant Cemetery in Toronto, to commemorate the Empress of Emanuel Hahn never had to slog through the mud of the trenches of Ypres or suffer the Ireland disaster. On May 29, 1914 the Empress sank in the St. Lawrence near Rimouski with terrifying barrages of enemy artillery. Nor did he ever have to deal with the loss of a “beloved 1,012 lives lost including 167 of the 197 Salvation Army officers and family on their way to fellow soldier”, but somehow he understood what horrors these men endured in the trenches. a Salvation Army congress in London. The May 30th issue of the Fernie District Ledger lists Whether his war memorial designs were allegorical or aggressive they never failed to reach eleven Fernie passengers on board including Lowther and Ruth Morton and their two children us, from one end of this country to another.

To our Veterans We salute you.

Lest We Forget Lest We Forget Remembering the sacrifice of our Remembering sacrifitowards ce of our Veterans andthe working Veterans and working towards peace accross the globe peace across the globe

Wayne Stetski

Wayne Stetski MEMBER OF PARLIAMENT

1791 9 Ave, Fernie, BC Phone: (250) 423-4222

KOOTENAY—COLUMBIA

MEMBER OF PARLIAMENT

WayneStetski.ndp.ca Wayne.Stetski@parl.gc.ca

Cranbrook -250-417-2250 Nelson - 250-354-2610

WayneStetski.ndp.ca Wayne.Stetski@parl.gc.ca

Cranbrook -250-417-2250 Nelson - 250-354-2610

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Remembrance Day – The Free Press

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Teaching kids about Remembrance Day Wondering how to share the importance of Remembrance Day with your kids? Here are a few ways to teach your children about the wars that shaped our history and the reasons we pay tribute to the men and women who took part in them.

Participate in Remembrance Day activities Attend a Remembrance Day ceremony with your children so they can emotionally connect with the history we commemorate on this day. You can also involve them in the other traditions of the holiday like wearing poppies and having two minutes of silence.

Read to them There are a number of books that teach children what Remembrance Day means for Canadians. Picture books are available for younger children whereas chapter books can be enjoyed by those who are older. Here are a few suggestions: What Is Peace?

by Wallace Edwards (for preschoolers) A Poppy Is to Remember

by Heather Patterson and Ron Lightburn (for grades one and up) Charlie Wilcox

by Sharon E. McKay (for grades four to six) Write and draw Encourage your children to draw a picture or write a poem, story or essay on the topic of remembrance. They could also participate in the Royal Canadian Legion’s Annual Literary and Poster Contest, which is open to all Canadian school children from grades one to 12. Consult the Royal Canadian Legion website (legion.ca) for more details.

On Remembrance Day… We recognize the many sacrifices made by our men and women in uniform both today and throughout our nation’s history. We honour their courage and dedication, and we thank them for their contribution to our country.

Thank You, Veterans.

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One hundred years of remembrance This year marks the 100th anniversary of the signing of the armistice that brought the First World War and its four years of armed conflict to an end. On November 11, 1918, representatives of France, Great Britain and Germany met in a railway carriage in France to sign the historic document, paving the way for the peace negotiations that would culminate in the Treaty of Versailles, a document drafted five months later.

The anniversary of the Armistice was observed the next year in Great Britain and this tradition quickly spread to the other Allied Nations. The holiday was originally known as Armistice Day, but member states of the Commonwealth of Nations like Canada eventually adopted the name Remembrance Day. We commemorate on this date not only citizens who fought in the First World War but also those who fought in the Second World War and every other war and peace­keeping mission since.

Although the Allies won the conflict, Armistice Day wasn’t a day of unabashed celebration. Given the unspeakable horrors and death tolls in World War I, and likewise in World War II, November 11 became a day of solemn commemoration. Hence the two minutes of silence we observe on this date, a tradition that goes back to the very first Armistice Day commemoration, in 1919.

SMS Equipment

Remembers…

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Remembrance Day – The Free Press

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Three Indigenous war heroes to salute on Remembrance Day Over 7,000 Indigenous Peoples in Canada served in the First and Second World Wars.

Of the many who distinguished themselves during their service, here are three that stand out.

1. Tommy Prince Earning 11 medals in World War II and the Korean War, Tommy Prince of the Brokenhead Ojibway Nation is the most decorated Indigenous Canadian war veteran. He’s renowned for his marksmanship and covert abilities, skills he learned on the reserve from his father who was a hunter and a trapper. Among Prince’s numerous celebrated exploits was locating an enemy camp during a 72-hour trek without food or water, an action that led to the capture of more than 1,000 German soldiers.

3. Edith Anderson Monture A Mohawk from the Six Nations Grand River Reserve, Edith Anderson Monture was one of 14 Canadian nurses who served as part of the United States Army Nurse Corps in World War I. She worked at a hospital in France, treating soldiers injured in trench warfare and gas attacks. After the war, she became the first Indigenous woman to become a registered nurse in Canada.

PHOTO: JOHN MOSES

2. Charles Tompkins Charles Tompkins was one of many Indigenous “code talkers” working for the Allies in World War II. A Métis who spoke fluent Cree, Tompkins was in charge of transmitting vital messages using a Cree code he helped develop. The practice involved one code talker translating a message into Cree and transmitting it by radio to a second code talker who would then translate the message back into English. This allowed the allies to share integral information with each other without exposing it to potential radio eavesdroppers.

Edith Anderson Monture

We will remember them.

Honouring those who served 741B 2nd Ave, Fernie, BC (250) 423-4661 www.salvationarmy.ca

e W Lest et Forg