Student Tour Blog

Written by Abigail VanOene

Our first stop of the day was Canada House at Juno Beach, the place we participated in a D-Day ceremony back on Saturday. This time when we came back it was quite a different atmosphere, the sun shining, no big crowds, and we were able to discuss in depth what had happened. After a brief from Professor Gary Sheffield we headed to the Juno Beach Centre. According to their website: “the Centre’s mandate is to preserve this legacy for future generations through education and remembrance”, and our team agreed that it did a really good job of this. My personal favourite part of the center was the beginning where you stand in a room with projectors all around creating a simulation that makes it seem like you are a soldier on a landing craft heading towards the beaches.

After Canada House and the Juno Beach Centre we got on the bus, made a quick stop for coffee and Julia gave us a presentation on language during the war. I had no idea that some of the words we use in our current vocabulary are traced back to military slang. Then we continued on our way to one of my favourites from the whole trip, a place called D-Day Academy. This was essentially a massive warehouse full of vehicles, artillery, clothing, posters and anything else you could think of war-related, that the owners of the Academy had collected. We were able to hold the weapons, try on the different clothes, sit inside all the vehicles and to make it even better, they took us for a ride into town in the back of one of the trucks.

For someone to have collected that much stuff was impressive, but it was also all in pristine condition, which allowed us to get a really good idea of what it would have been like when used in the wars. I really appreciated how much care everyone working there had for the material, and it was clear that it meant a lot to them.

In the evening our team enjoyed the views at the Moulin Morin and debriefed the day together. It has been so special getting to share these big moments with people who just 10 days ago were strangers. Students and professors, our team is still getting along very well and looking forward to the last few days of the tour.

-Abigail VanOene (University of the Fraser Valley)