A Chatelech Secondary School grad is touring battlefields, cemeteries and memorials from the First and Second World Wars as part of a 16-day battlefield study tour with the University of Ottawa and the Canadian Battlefield Foundation this week.
The tour, running from May 25 to June 10, will see Sechelt's Meghan Stewart visit the First World War sites of Ypres, the Somme and Vimy Ridge followed by a trip to Dieppe and a detailed examination of the Normandy campaign of the Second World War.
The tour coincides with the 68th anniversary of the D-Day landings and it promises to be a meaningful experience.
"These students are about to have an opportunity to follow in the footsteps of Canadians who served overseas during these two wars," University of Victoria (UVic) historian and Stewart's teacher, James Wood said. "Few experiences can compare with actually walking the ground if we want to really understand what happened at places like Dieppe and Vimy Ridge."
Stewart is one of only a dozen Canadian students selected to attend the tour this year, and she was delighted to find out she had made the cut.
"I wanted to take part because of a course I took at UVic this year, the UVic Military Oral History Project," Stewart said. "I was able after extensive training to speak with Canadian veterans and record their stories for the UVic archives. The stories I heard from them were incredibly inspiring."
She thinks those stories will seem all the more real when she stands where soldiers fought and died.
"I hope this trip will help to make the history I study come alive for me. I want to better understand the incredible sacrifices made by Canadian soldiers in the First and Second World Wars," she said.
