The Royal Canadian Legion’s Estevan branch will have a couple of evening activities on Nov. 11 as part of Remembrance Day.
The bells of St. Giles Anglican Church will ring 75 times at dusk, as the 75th anniversary of the end of the Second World War was earlier this year. The bell ringing is similar to what happened two years ago, when the bells rang 100 times in honour of the end of the First World War.
Troy LeBlanc, who is the chairperson of the branch’s Remembrance Day committee, said a few members of the legion will be at the city’s cenotaph at 5 p.m. to observe a couple minutes of silence before the bells ring, and then to listen to the bells once they start. The bells should begin around 5:15 p.m.
“It will all be live-streamed and shown on our Facebook page,” said LeBlanc.
Once the bells have finished ringing, there will be a virtual poppy drop shown on the cenotaph. It will last about two hours.
“It’s going to look like the poppies are being dropped down onto the cenotaph,” he said.
LeBlanc hopes a multi-media presentation that has been shown at the Estevan Remembrance Day ceremonies in the past can be shown again, but the location has yet to be announced. It has photos of veterans from the Estevan area who served in the First World War, the Second World War and other combat missions and peacekeeping efforts.
The poppy drop has been a part of the Remembrance Day service the past couple of years in Estevan, with people coming up and placing their poppies at the makeshift cenotaph at the Estevan Comprehensive School at the end of the Remembrance Day service. But the service can’t be held at the Comp. this year due to COVID, and the large gathering isn’t allowed.
