Had we been alive 100 years ago today, we would have cheering for the Canadian boys to mark the success of the battle of Vimy Ridge. The battle of Vimy Ridge took place from April 9 – 12, 1917, and was significant not only from a military point of view (the Canadians took Vimy Ridge while other forces had failed) but patriotically. The War Museum site (www.warmuseum.ca) has this to say: “The capture of Vimy was more than just an important battlefield victory. For the first time all four Canadian divisions attacked together: men from all regions of Canada were present at the battle. Brigadier-General A.E. Ross declared after the war, “in those few minutes I witnessed the birth of a nation.”
We saw a wonderful film about Vimy Ridge presented by the Yorkton Film Festival during “Open Cinema” at the Yorkton Public Library; and of the many things that I learned, I wanted to tell you about the horticultural connections to Vimy Ridge.
In the film, it stated that while the battlefield was once a barren and destroyed landscape, it is now surrounded by trees. Trees were planted for the soldiers who died there: hundreds of thousands of trees. Imagine. And while the 250 acre site of the memorial is lush and green, sheep are used to keep the grass neat. Why? There are still unexploded shells buried in the soil.
When I was researching, I clicked on Maples ForVimy and learned about something that happened just a few days ago in France, on April 9. The Vimy Ridge Centennial Living Memorials of Honour in France had Scouts, Cadets and leaders from Canada going to France to plant 500 maple trees on Vimy Ridge and in surrounding communities. The trees are arranged to represent the four divisions of the Canadian Corps and units attached to the Corps.
A variety of maples were planted, to represent our diverse cultures. Red maples ( acer ruburm Fairview Flame”); silver maples (acer saccharinum “Pyramidale”); and the Regal Petticoat maples (acer pseudoplatanus “Tunpetti”) were planted. These trees were planted in areas where Canadians were deployed leading up to the battle, and on the actual battle grounds. What a beautiful tribute.
And here’s another wonderful story that I read on CBC: an Ontario boy, Leslie Miller, was a soldier at Vimy. In the time leading up to the actual battle, he gathered a handful of acorns from the ravaged Vimy soil and sent them home to Ontario, asking that they should be planted. Thankfully, he later made it home alive, and by then, some seedlings were growing.
Years later, Leslie’s friend Monty Mcdonald dreamed a dream of these trees being planted at Vimy Ridge. Acorns were few, so branches were grafted onto new rootstock. The hope was that these would result in trees that could be planted at Vimy Ridge. Sadly, the trees were not accepted into France because of a pathogen affecting trees, but acorns are now being grown in Paris. It’s a long road from those first acorns to their oak descendants, but hopefully these trees will one day be at Vimy Ridge.
The next meeting of the Yorkton and District Horticultural Society will be on Wednesday, April 19, at 7:00 p.m. at SIGN on North Street. Warren Crossman will be talking to us about “Ornamental and Native Grasses For The Local Area”. Everyone is welcome.
Let’s remember the Vimy soldiers with a heartfelt “thank you” today. They’re true heroes. Thank you, boys! God bless you!
