Friday, November 8, 2013

Memorial Drive, Calgary

Memorial Drive is my favourite road in Calgary, for a variety of reasons.  And most of my reasons  would showcase much better in the summer time.  So I'll save my thoughts for another day.
Bearing in mind the road is called "Memorial Drive",  I can tell you that this a tree-lined urban street, that runs mostly parallel with the Bow River from east to west, and was dedicated to the soldiers who died in World War I.  Every tree planted is a living legacy to those soldiers.  And there are many.
From our cold and snowy visit last weekend, I just wanted to show you a sombre but very cool acknowledgement of some 3000+ Albertans who died serving their country.
Plus a few others.

Every cross has the name of the soldier and the date that he died.  The heart-breaking majority were in 1917 and 1918, and then a sizeable minority were from around 1943 and 1944.  I saw two others representing soldiers from 1950 and 1956.  There were too many for me to see every one of them, but I like the acknowledgement, effort and taste of this (far too large) mark of respect.

4 comments:

  1. I haven't seen these memorials, but I loved reading about them. As the daughter of a WWII veteran, and having visited Canadian servicemen's graves in France, I can appreciate the meaning of Memorial Drive.
    Thanks.
    K

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  2. Sobering photos, always good to remember, the red flags very effecting against white snow.

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  3. That's a great way for the city of Calgary to mark Remembrance Day.

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  4. Splendid and a lasting memorial and reminder of the sadness and futility of war.

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