With COVID-19 limiting the ability for communities to host regular Remembrance Day ceremonies, local groups are taking a variety of approaches to honour the sacrifice of Canada’s military personnel.
In Airdrie, a short service will be held at the local cenotaph Nov. 11 with capacity for 100 veterans, while a longer pre-recorded ceremony will be available to stream on YouTube, according to Bill Drummond, First Vice President of the Royal Canadian Legion’s Airdrie Branch 288.
“The world’s a different place from last year, for goodness sake, never mind before,” Drummond said. “But we shall overcome and I’m sure somewhere along the line we’ll get back to what we used to call normal. In the meantime, we have to live with what we’ve got.”
Normally, Rocky View County would recruit local students to lay poppies and flags on veterans’ headstones at the Garden of Peace Cemetery. According to Bart Goemans, manager of Marketing and Communications, a public ceremony will not be held due to COVID-19 protocols, but County staff will lay a wreath at the cenotaph and place poppies and flags on the headstones.
In Cochrane, a ceremony will be held outdoors at the cenotaph grounds beginning at 10:30 a.m. According to Debra Mayfield, Service Officer for the Royal Canadian Legion’s Cochrane Branch 15, it will also be live-streamed on the Legion’s Facebook page.
The ceremony will last approximately one hour and 20 minutes, Mayfield said. Besides the usual elements of the ceremony, a special homage to the nine names on Cochrane’s cenotaph is planned to commemorate the 75th anniversary of the end of the Second World War. Mayfield has tracked down descendants of seven of those families, who will lay a wreath.
The cenotaph grounds will be cordoned off with room for 35 veterans to reserve a spot during the ceremony. Priority will be given to veterans from Cochrane, and then those from the surrounding area.
Reservations can be made by emailing your name, service affiliation and contact information to [email protected] or by calling 403-999-0821.
As the ceremony will take place in public, Mayfield said she can’t turn away residents who stand and observe the ceremony, but the public is asked to follow Alberta Health Services regulations like wearing masks and maintaining social distancing.
“One of the biggest disappointments is not having our youth,” Mayfield said. “The army and air cadet units that we have here in Cochrane, we’re not able to have them participate in any of the ceremony.”
The Bragg Creek Cenotaph Committee has organized a virtual service that can be streamed any time from the Bragg Creek Community Church’s YouTube channel, but no in-person service is planned.
No service is planned for Beiseker or Irricana, although Irricana Chief Administrative Officer Ted Coffey said residents could pay their respects at the cenotaph at 11 a.m.
Instead, people in the area can head to Acme for a drive-by ceremony at the Royal Canadian Legion’s Acme Branch 76. According to president Marina Seaward, wreaths will be set up for people to pay their respects between 10:30 a.m. and 1:30 p.m. and people can leave their poppies on the cenotaph to honour veterans if they choose.
Seaward encouraged everyone to observe a minute of silence at 11 a.m. wherever they may be. In Acme, church bells will ring following the minute of silence.
In Crossfield, Todd Kiernan, president of the Royal Canadian Legion’s Crossfield Branch 113, said a virtual ceremony will be available on W.G. Murdoch School’s YouTube channel Nov. 10. The ceremony is a collaboration between the Legion, the school and Crossfield Elementary School. Kiernan said the link will also be posted to crossfieldalberta.ca
The ceremony will feature all the elements of an in-person service, Kiernan said, including a guest speaker, a performance by the Crossfield Choir, the Act of Remembrance and the reading of the honour roll.
“Those people gave up their lives, many of them, and we’ve sort of been asked to isolate and stay at home,” Kiernan said. “I don’t think that compares to what a lot of them had to go through in those wars.”
Though unavoidable, Kiernan said it is nevertheless disappointing Remembrance Day ceremonies can’t be held the way they normally would.
“This was our main event every year,” he said of the Crossfield Remembrance Day ceremony. “This was always the highlight of our planning. We’ve filled that Crossfield hall every year as long as I can remember.”
Most Legion branches are currently running their poppy campaigns, which raise money to support veterans by providing grants for food, housing and medication, among other things. Seaward said with many Legions having closed for most of the year due to COVID-19, it especially important for people to donate to their local poppy campaign this year. Kiernan concurred.
“Hopefully we can generate some funds to give to the vets through different organizations,” he said.
Ben Sherick, AirdrieToday.com
Follow me on Twitter @BenSherick
