WW1 Basic Canadian Tour

THE GREAT WAR - BASIC CANADIAN TOUR

FOLLOWING IN THE FOOTSTEPS OF THE CANADIAN EXPEDITIONARY FORCE (CEF)

This basic guide is designed to appeal to those visitors to the battlefields whose main interest is the involvement in WWI of the CEF. Before reading it, however, I would recommend that you consult 'WWI Basic Tour' which can be accessed via the sidebar. This covers some of the same ground but also contains additional information that you will find helpful.

As I implied in the 'WWI Basic Tour', I firmly believe that the best way to 'do' the Western Front for the first time is to visit the battlefields of the Somme first and then to work northwards via Vimy Ridge to the Ypres Salient. This way you can finish your tour at the emotionally charged Last Post Ceremony at the Menin Gate in Ypres.

The Menin Gate, Ypres

ITINERARY

Day 1 : The Somme

Visit sites recommended in the Basic Tour but concentrate on Newfoundland Park at Beaumont Hamel.

Day 2 : Make your way north to Ypres via the Canadian Memorial on Vimy Ridge.

Day 3 : Ypres

Visit Passchendaele village round about which so many of the events described in Ed's eBook took place, especially the VC action of 'Hoodoo'

Kinross.

Follow the signs from the village square down the slope to the Canadian Memorial Stone at what was once Crest Farm.

Read the inscription and marvel!

Return to the village square and proceed to the massive Tyne Cot Cemetery which contains 1011 named Canadian graves though many

more will lie among the 8366 unnamed interments.

On your way back to Ypres, stop off at the Brooding Soldier Monument at St Julien commemorating those Canadians who endured the first

use of poison gas by the Germans in April, 1915.

For those visitors wishing to find their way to the approximate site of 'Hoodoo' Kinross' VC action the best way is by consulting the description and map contained in Nigel Cave's 'Passchendaele - The Fight For The Village' (See bibliography) in conjunction with my present day photo of Furst Farm (Ed's eBook, Ch.5)

There are, obviously, many more sites on the Western Front with a Canadian connection to be visited. Those above are intended for the first-time vistor with limited time to spend. May your visit inspire you to come again!