"It will be one long and final march home for 68,000 lost Canadian souls.
As the sun set over the British capital Tuesday night, an ambitious act of remembrance began when the first name was projected against the walls of Canada House in Trafalgar Square. One after another, the names of each Canadian to fall in World War I followed.
As the sun moved westward to Canada, the names went with it, projected against buildings in six cities. The sequence continues with 9,700 names per night spread across 13-hour, sunset-to-sunrise vigils until the last name appears at the break of dawn on Nov. 11." - Mitch Potter, Toronto Star
The cities participating in Vigil 1914-1918 are:
Halifax, at St. Paul's Anglican Church.
Fredericton, in Alumni Hall at the University of New Brunswick.
Ottawa, at the National War Memorial.
Toronto, in Nathan Phillips Square.
Regina, at the Saskatchewan legislature.
Edmonton, at the Alberta legislature.
"The Ottawa National Vigil will stream live from the National War Memorial. It will run for seven nights, starting at 5:00pm Nov. 4th and each evening afterward. The first name appears at 5:15pm. Each night’s vigil will be 13 hours long, ending at sunrise the following day. The vigil will then recommence at 5:00pm and run another 13 hours. The last name will appear as dawn breaks on November 11th." - Vigil 1914-1918 (this link takes you to the streaming video)
"The Queen, Prince Philip, the Canadian High Commissioner to Britain and war veterans stood and watched the beginning of the vigil Tuesday night from a darkened Trafalgar Square. Canadian actor R.H. Thomson was on hand for the opening ceremony in London. Along with lighting designer Martin Conboy, Thomson created this memorial to Canada's soldiers from the Great War.
Speaking at Canada House just before the names began appearing, the Queen said, 'Through the Internet - technology undreamt of by those who served in the First World War - the deep personal resonance of this imaginative transatlantic act of remembering will reach across time and space to be shared by many people in Canada, in Britain and around the world as we join together in looking to the future by reminding ourselves of how the past can inform the present.'
The project has special resonance for Thomson: He lost several great uncles in the First World War. On his father's side of the family, five brothers went to war and four died - two on the battlefield and two in a sanatorium, the victims of gassing, after they had returned to Canada.
Thomson remembers the surviving brother as 'magical Uncle Art,' who never really regained his footing, and turned his back on society to become a trapper and guide. He taught the Thomson children to gamble on Christmas holidays and let them feel the bullet lodged in his back." - Elizabeth Renzetti, Globe and Mail
If you're in one of the participating cities or viewing the event online, join with R.H. Thomson as he welcomes the soldiers of the War to End All Wars back home to the Land of The Maple Leaf.
