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~ Stories of MacDonald Family Adventures

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Monthly Archives: July 2016

Vimy Ridge

18 Monday Jul 2016

Posted by jrwmacdonald in Europe, Living, Traveling

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Canada, Canadian War Memorials, France, World War One, WWI

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Canada mourns the loss of her fallen sons from Vimy Ridge, France.

124 years ago today, July 18th 1892, my great grandfather, George Andrew McDonald, came screaming into the world. In his 24th year he enlisted with the Canadian military and entered the Great War. He volunteered likely believing the war would be over by December and thus set sail for England, I imagine, excited for adventure. I know very little of the man though he was one of my father’s principal early care givers.

When I graduated from high school my father gifted me George’s WWI service medal. That gift seemed to somehow connect me to this man. From the regiment number stamped on that medal I obtained his attestation paper from his military enlistment. Library and Archives Canada (LAC) has made these available online. I then went on to pay the photocopy fees to obtain his service record from the LAC. Practically everything I know about the man comes from these documents. It isn’t much.

George Andrew MacDonald

George was five feet six inches tall and likely weighed around 140lbs. He had light brown hair and grey eyes and I imagine that if he and I were standing side by side we might just be mistaken as brothers. He was 23 years old when he enlisted in late November 1915 in Sarnia Ontario. He was assigned to the Canadian Forestry Corps and the 70th batallion. His initial medical report indicates that he had no distinguishing physical marks. Within a year there’d be scars: physical and mental. He was discharged August 23rd, 1918 “being medically unfit for further general service” the record states. He had taken a bullet just above his left knee, “external to the joint,” though I wonder if he walked with a limp from then on? He took that bullet somewhere along the Somme, France on the 12th of October 1916 nearly 100 years ago.

The Somme was a muddy, bloody cess pool. Men literally rotted in trenches as we struggled to learn this new “modern” warfare. His record tells a grim story of the aftermath of that experience though in the most clinical and perfunctory way. One doctor reports that he “claimed” to be shell-shocked 4 or 5 times. I know he was at the front but how long exactly I can’t say. He was in France for 5 months. He developed a slight tremor in his hands that could be seen also in his tongue. He couldn’t keep his food down and lost about 20 pounds. He was nervous all the time and easily excited. If he was anything like me his resting pulse rate should have been in the mid to low 50s. After his time at the front it was 108.

When I learned I would be going to France I hoped that my travels would take me close enough to the Vimy Ridge memorial. George didn’t fight at Vimy (that was a few months after he was wounded). Vimy is the Canadian war memorial to see in France. It is widely regarded that our victory there was the birth place of the nation. France gifted the ridge in perpetuity to the people of Canada and on its hallowed ground stands an inspiring monument to the sacrifice made there.

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.

It was raining as we drove through the French countryside, avoiding the toll road, toward Vimy Ridge. The country is flat here and well cultivated. We passed through many small French villages where row homes of weathered brick pressed close against the narrow road. The steeples of Catholic Churches rose majestically above each community against the back drop of storm darkening skies. Then suddenly between villages appeared the familiar white font on black background of Canadian government signs, a small red maple leaf in the corner. This could not be a sign for Vimy Ridge as it was too soon but I was intrigued. I made a left as directed and followed the signs to an unknown, to me, Canadian memorial. The narrow road narrowed more and more until it was essentially a single paved lane winding through French fields. Then just off the road was a small plot, maybe 30 meters square, of fenced coniferous trees with close cropped grass. In its centre lay a rock monument with the statue of a caribou dominating its top. Gueudecourt. I would learn that a regiment from Newfoundland fought bravely and won here at extraordinary cost. Newfoundland was not a part of Canada at that time. It wouldn’t become Canada’s tenth province until after the 2nd World War. Yet, a Canadian monument all the same.

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Gueudecourt Memorial

The small grounds of this memorial are meticulously kept. Even the shallow trench at the foot of the caribou statue was filled with well groomed grass. The rain fell lightly as I reflected on the beauty now found here. I wondered if George felt the sting of that bullet somewhere close by. Perhaps it was a rainy day much like this one and he was in this trench at my feet. His feet rotting in his boots as he anticipated the command to climb out of the mud and charge the enemy. I learned that this line, this trench at my feet, became the front line of the Somme. Indeed along this line some where George had fought. Along this line now stretching off into well cultivated fields George had sat in the mud as explosions shook the ground around him and men died in squalor. Yet, when he arrived the trench had already been dug and the ground watered with the blood of Newfoundland’s boys and when he was done others would come to make their sacrifice. It was sombering to stand there in the rain.

We drove on to Vimy Ridge. Every Canadian has seen this monument. It is on our 20 dollar bill. Two granite spires reach out of the earth toward heaven and at its base a single tomb to represent the thousands lost here and elsewhere in the war. Above the tomb the lone figure of a woman, Canada, shrouded in her granite cloak mourns the loss of her sons. Her eyes are downcast staring at the silent tomb unable to see the view presented by the ridge she stands upon. It was for that view of the plains her sons had fought and died. Fought and died. Sixty thousand Canadian soldiers;  1 in 10 from a force of 600,000. 1 in 10 from a country of a mere 7 million.

I wandered around the monument lost in my thoughts, grateful for the sacrifices made and saddened that it was ever necessary. I placed my hand upon the names of the fallen carved in that granite and felt a small touch of survivor’s guilt. George was only a boy who likely had little concept of the fate that awaited him when he signed that attestation. Sure there was some courage there, some patriotism, some sense of duty but it was probably the uniform, the call of adventure, the smiles of the girls that compelled him to the theatre of war. The dark clouds roiled above us but did not obstruct our view of the valley which seemed to stretch out a hundred years and into our prosperous lives.

Just a few days later Lisa and I joined hundreds of thousands of Parisians at the foot of the Eiffel Tower to celebrate Bastille Day. A day of freedom. Later that night when the fireworks had ended we learned that a man had used a truck as a weapon at a similar fireworks show in Nice, France. He indiscriminately smashed through the crowds killing and maiming men, women and children. In a great act of evil he took the lives of nearly 100 people and injured twice as many. Tens of thousands more mourn their loss. Their eyes are fixed on the tombs at their feet. It is a new “modern” warfare. There is no trench to climb into and if there were those firing from the other side are surrounded with innocents. Is there a weapon made with hands that could find our enemies without giving rise to more? I won’t claim to have the answers but it seems clear to me that the soil at our feet has an infinite capacity to drink the blood of man.

A mourning Canada.
A lone tomb representing our fallen.
Canada comforts the suffering.

The names of fallen Canadian soldiers on French soil during WWI.
The Canadian war memorial at Vimy Ridge, France

50.384502 2.767196

Home Sweet Home

10 Sunday Jul 2016

Posted by jrwmacdonald in Living

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In January 2007 I completed my graduate work at the University of Alberta in Library and Information Studies. I was a newly minted librarian looking for work and desperate to take whatever I could find. It turned out that I really didn’t need to worry. As I entered my final semester in the fall of 2006 I was very nervous about my prospects for work and a career. Are there really jobs out there for librarians? Turns out there are and I had several offers of work. I had choices and I chose Northern Lights Library System in Northeast Alberta. It is a regional public library system headquartered in Elk Point. Elk Point, it turns out, is a town of just 1500 people and a couple hours outside of Edmonton. It’s oil and farm country. 

I arrived in Elk Point in late December looking for a home for my family. Oil was doing well at that time and there was hardly a rental available. What was available was less than desirable. I stopped in at Elk Point Realty hoping they might have a lead on something half way decent. On the window was several advertisements of properties for sale. I was just a starving student; there was no way I could afford anything… But wait… There was an old (1974) mobile home practically across the street from my new employer. The advert said “lot for sale, owner willing to negotiate removal of old trailer” or something to that effect. Clearly the trailer wasn’t meant to be inhabited but how bad could it possibly be?


There wasn’t a proper step up to the trailer. At first I had to turn over a 5 gallon pail as a step held in place by the ice and snow. The power had been off for sometime in the trailer so stepping inside wasn’t much of a relief from the bitter prairie cold outside. It was filthy. Boxes of junk, old clothing and long abandoned personal affects were strewn throughout the house. Entering I found myself in the kitchen. I kicked aside a box to reveal a 2 x 2 foot hole cut in the floor. I could see straight through to the ground. Sometime this or a previous winter the water pipes had frozen and burst. The owner cut into the floor to get at those pipes. “I can fix that,” I thought. 

Venturing deeper into the trailer I stepped into the utility room. The floor here was completely gone. There was no clean cut through the floor boards. It appeared that an axe or some other destructive implement was used. I learned later that the pipes, having frozen and burst, were gushing water out of the trailer and down the street. The owner had hacked away mercilessly to get to those pipes. He never did fix the problem. The trailer, to be liveable, would need all of its plumbing replaced.

The bathroom looked in slightly better shape. It was an ugly 1970s green but it might work out. The outside wall the bathtub was set against was clearly rotten. It would need to be replaced. Walking in, just past the sink and approaching the toilet the floor changed. It was spongy, clearly also water damaged and rotting. This would be a big job. A vision was forming nonetheless and I new the place was for us. Fortunately I took a little walk through video after I bought the place. I sent it to Lisa to show her our new home, have a look:

Lisa is the right girl for me. I’m not completely certain she knew what she was getting into when she married me but she takes it all pretty well. When I called her about the trailer she had one condition: there must be running water before she or the kids would come out to join me. How hard could it be? I had no idea what I was doing. It took me a few days of research to figure out how to begin. There is this great plumbing material called Pex. It is incredibly easy to install. My dad was good enough to come out and help me rebuild floors and walls too. So it was, that I was working as a librarian during the day and then retreating to my broken down trailer every night to work into the wee hours of the morning. I think it took about 3 weeks to get the job done or at least sufficiently to convince Lisa to join me.

I took this video shortly after the family moved in: 

We survived in this place for about 2 and a half years. Lisa very graciously lived through a stream of renovations until finally she convinced me it was time for a real home. So our little trailer turned rental property and we moved across town to a lovely little place. That lasted about 6 weeks but that’s an entirely different story. Before moving we did what we could to get the trailer worthy to rent. Our first tenant turned out to be a colleague from work. Here is yet another video in the transformation of the trailer:

That video would be the last I’d see of the trailer for about 5 years. In the past 5 years we’ve travelled the world leaving little Elk Point to become nearly a distant memory. Lisa’s sister has been living in Elk Point this whole time (yet another story) and taking care of the place for us. She has done an excellent job. These last renters though were not exactly desirable. Leah is moving away from Elk Point and there are not property management companies in the area. Suddenly Elk Point and the trailer have become a thing in our lives again. So last weekend Lisa and I loaded up the van with tools and drove the 1000 kilometers out to Elk Point to inspect the damage from these last not so great renters.

When we walked in I thought it might be easier to just light a match and walk away. The place was a disaster. Filthy really. It took us 2 and a half days of some serious elbow grease, along with several cans of paint, to clean it all up. We had help of course. Huge thanks to the Coleman family, president West, brother Bullock and sister Hatch. They all turned out to give us a hand getting the place put back together. These are friends made 6 years and more ago who didn’t really know we were even coming to town. We showed up in town on a Sunday and they were out helping within hours. The Colemans even spared us sleeping on thin air mattresses in the trailer by opening their home to us. I like to think sometimes that the success I’ve had in life comes generally from a willingness to take risks and to work hard. I might be tempted to say that I am responsible for any success I have in life but it’s really not the case at all. That risk taking and work ethic comes from a lifetime of support from good family and good friends. The longer I live the larger that network of support becomes. I’ve done pretty well thus far, I’m happy, and it’s not really because of me but inspite of me. I’m surrounded by good people that refuse to let my follies let me fall too far. 

The trailer is now up for sale. With the economy the way it is I’m not certain we’ll find a buyer. So a sale may not be possible. Failing that I hope we can rent it out. I took one last walk through video after we got it cleaned up. It is a long way from what it was 9 years ago. If you know someone looking to buy in Elk Point, Alberta we’ve got the place for them. If they just need a place to rent we may be able to arrange that too. One last walk through:

Check out the property listing on Realtor.ca

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