Students, veterans at Vimy Ridge school commemorate 100th anniversary of battle

Their school was named after the ultimate sacrifice made a century ago on the fields of France by thousands of Canadian soldiers. 

An ocean away from the national memorial in Vimy Ridge, students and war veterans gathered at a school named in its honour in Ajax, to commemorate the 100th anniversary of the battle on Sunday. 

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A bagpipe-led procession, along with members of the Royal Canadian Legion, signaled the start of the memorial with laying of the wreaths at the entrance of the school as hundreds of staff, students and family members paid their respects.

Vimy Ridge Public School, established in 2009, is the only school in Ontario named after the three-day battle in northern France, which killed 3,600 Canadian soldiers and injured 7,000 more.

It is considered a seminal moment in Canada's history; the first instance in which all four divisions of the Canadian military fought together during the war. 

"[Students] are learning about the men who embody what it means to be an everyday hero," said Vimy Ridge Public School principal Peter Creer. 

The United Voices student choir sang On Vimy Ridge, an original song written by Annie Walker, a second grade teacher at the school. The lyrics make specific references to the events of the war, a point Walker said helps students understand the gravity of Vimy Ridge's significance. 

"[The choir] was connecting to different lines in the song and especially to the part that says 'when we stand together we are strong.' And that was very moving to me," Walker said. 

Veterans met with students after the ceremony in the school's gymnasium to take in the televised memorials from Vimy Ridge and to share their stories.

94-year-old Eugene Victor Heesaker served in the Second World War and said it is vital that the sacrifices of past generations must never be forgotten.

"We, as Canadians, we took the place that nobody thought we could take," he said. "It showed how good the Canadians were and we're proud to be Canadian."

Vimy oak trees find new home

A century on, parts of Vimy Ridge will now find a new home on the school grounds.

Leslie Miller was a 28-year-old infantry member when he fought at Vimy Ridge in 1917. The battlefield, once teeming with oak trees, had been destroyed from bombs and the terror of warfare. 

Amidst the trenches, Miller found acorn seeds from the trees and sent them back to his hometown of Scarborough, where he eventually grew a number of oak trees on his farm. 

The remaining acorns from trees Miller grew were collected by a volunteer group hoping to re-plant oak trees on Vimy Ridge's soil. Several of the plants were sent to Vimy Ridge Public School to add history, with a lineage to the war.

"It's an honour and it's the kind of story that captures the children's imagination too and allows them to connect," Walker said. 

The trees are set to be planted in May.