INNISFAIL – Hundreds of Innisfail and area citizens joined veterans, dignitaries, town officials, and members of the Innisfail Royal Canadian Legion for the annual Remembrance Day Memorial Service on Sunday.
The Nov. 11 event included an indoor ceremony with readings, hymns, the WWI and WWII Roll of Honour and guest speakers. Following that, there was a short outdoor wreath laying ceremony at the cenotaph.
This year’s Remembrance Day marks the 100th anniversary of the Armistice, the end of the First World War.
Innisfail joined millions of Canadians in observing this important milestone.
“We are ringing the bells of honour at 4:50 p.m. today (at sundown),” said Stephen Black, 2nd vice-president at the legion and chair of this year's poppy campaign. “They will ring 100 times to mark the 100th anniversary of the Armistice. The 7 Penhold Air Cadets are helping us out with that and are ringing the bells at St. Mark’s Anglican Church.
“We wanted to be a big part of that,” he added. “The Town of Innisfail (and its citizens) always gets behind our Remembrance Day service, and in conjunction with the legion, we wanted to make sure that happened in town this year.”
One of two guest speakers this year was Capt. Kirsten MacFadyen, a regular force nursing officer from Ottawa. She spoke on Canada’s history in war, the importance of Remembrance Day and highlighted some of the important anniversaries being marked this year.
The 100th anniversary of the First World War Armistice is an important one she noted, especially for today’s younger generations.
“One hundred years is a pretty major anniversary and it allows people to reflect on that (significance),” said MacFadyen. “For younger people, they don’t have a connection to that because that was their great-grandparents. They can’t (understand) how long one hundred years is or how many generations that is,” she added, highlighting recent conflicts and wars.
“They need a way to be able to relate to veterans now and to everything that Remembrance Day means and bring that into something that’s meaningful to them in this day and age,” MacFadyen concluded.
