THE CANADIANS IN FRANCE & BELGIUM

Visiting

The Battle of the Somme - 1916

The Battle of Arras - 1917

The Ypres Salient –1915 - 1917

At 10.58 hours in the Belgian village of Ville-sur-Haine on November 11, 1918 a single 7.92mm round fired by a German soldier hit Private George Lawrence Price of "A" Company, 28th Battalion,  Canadian Expeditionary Force.  Lawrence died instantly.  Two minutes later at 11.00 hours the First World War ended.            

With his death Lawrence would  become the last soldier of the British Empire to be killed in the war.  By then Canada had lost 66,975 men and women killed or through enemy action.  As a percentage of the population this was 0.92% - while tiny and proudly independent Newfoundland had lost 1,570 men 0.65% of the population of 0.2 million.  Canadian troops and the men of Newfoundland had fought with courage and distinction in World War I winning 71 Victoria Crosses. 

Our tour pays tribute to their sacrifice and bravery and takes you to the key battlegrounds of war including Ypres and Vimy Ridge.  The former where outstanding Canadian courage is remembered as men of the Expeditionary Force faced the first gas attack of the war while the latter has the superb and moving Canadian National Vimy Memorial with its inscription

To the valour of their
Countrymen in the Great War
And in memory of their sixty
Thousand dead this monument
Is raised by the people of Canada

Come with Spirit of Remembrance to France and Belgium and walk over land that through courage and sacrifice has become a part of Canada.