Janaye on Vimy

Today was a long and amazing day.
We got up at 5, which should really just not exist. We then began the two hour
drive to Vimy, which was actually really great because we got a new luxury bus
with reclining seat and foot rest things. When we got there, we got our lunches
and began the silent march up to the Vimy Memorial. It was at that moment,
marching through the streets of Givenchy, that I realized that I’ve never felt
so proud to be a Canadian. The people of Givenchy, complete with Canadian flags
and excited toddlers watching us go by, are still so welcoming and grateful to
our nation, even 95 years later.
It was an amazing feeling, coming
over the hill and seeing the memorial. We walked past it, though, to the
ceremony at the second cemetery. The terrain that had once been a bloody
battlefield had been turned into a forest straight out of The Hobbit. The only
thing that made me look twice were the hundreds of little hills formed by past
artillery shells and the signs on electric fences saying “Danger, do not enter.
Undetonated explosives.”
After the ceremony, which was
fairly short, we walked to the Vimy Memorial. It was so unbelievably cold. I
even wore a plastic poncho, so you know how bad it was. Even though it was
cold, it was a really good experience because in the back of my mind I knew
that the soldiers that sacrificed their lives here had gone through much worse.
I was really mad because when we got to the memorial, we weren’t allowed to go
on it and had to hope the zoom on our cameras were good. Apparently they kept
people off it for security reasons. Honestly, I’d rather just not have the
dignitaries come if it meant I could go see the memorial.
We took some pictures, and then
walked through the trenches to the lunch tent. I didn’t find the trenches as
moving as the artillery craters, because they had been remade out of cement and
didn’t feel real. Lunch was amazing; a sandwich with just cheese and lettuce, a
donut, chips and an apple. It was also great to get out of the cold. We then
marched to the back of the Vimy memorial, where I and several others got our
Thompson flag ready. We brought it around to the front, where we waited for the
ceremonies to start. I’ve never been so cold in my life. I couldn’t see
anything except glimpses of the jumbo TV. The ceremony was all right...except
that i couldn’t hear Oh Canada and the speakers all rambled on. The only parts
I found meaningful were when the veterans spoke and when two sisters from
Edmonton sang a beautiful song they wrote about Vimy.
The bus
was blissfully warm, and we got to wait for around an hour and warmed up before
supper, which was in an arena where the concert was being held. It was so much
fun dancing in the crowd in front of the stage. The night just flew by, and now
we’re on the way to our hotel. It’s been a very long day, and I’m excited to
just lie down and sleep.
-
Janaye Tucker-Titanich