Drums, bells and bagpipes sounded across Haida Gwaii this Remembrance Day, which marked 100 years since the end of “the war to end war.”
Nearly 61,000 Canadians and Newfoundlanders were killed during the First World War — nearly one in 10 of all who were enlisted. The armistice that finally ended the four-year war took effect at 11 a.m. on Nov. 11, 1918.
Edward Dix, a Haida fisherman from Old Massett, was among those who died at home following a major injury suffered during his military service. He was 28 years old.
At the wreath-laying ceremony in Queen Charlotte — the first where the Haida national anthem was sung along with “O Canada” — everyone heard a verse from “For the Fallen,” a 1914 poem by Laurence Binyon that remains part of Remembrance Day ceremonies over a century later:
They shall grow not old, as we that are left grow old:
Age shall not weary them, nor the years contemn.
At the going down of the sun and in the morning
We will remember them.
(Andrew Hudson/Haida Gwaii Observer photos)