Ypres

If you're a British Columbian in Flanders, you go to Ypres, apparently: we did, and so did the Liuetenant-Governor of BC.

The "In Flanders' Fields" museum was, appropriately enough, a living museum. In addition to a permanent exhibit (located in the faithfully reconstructed cloth hall, which was bombed to bits in the war), they also have temporary exhibitions. During our visit, the temporary exhibit explored the nationalities and ethnicities of the fighters of the war. Over 60 countries were involved and the racism of the imperial forces was staggering. Many countries trained non-whites as soldiers, then shipped them to the front where, in actuality, they would contribute to the war effort as porters.

We spent a fair bit of time on foot in the area. We walked through memorial gardens with the requisite poppies in full bloom, paid our respects at one of the hundreds of military cemeteries, and attended the 24,807th Last Post Ceremony at the Menenpoort.

The Menenpoort is a monument with the names of the Allied war dead inscribed in it. It's a huge monument, but all the same, it is not large enough for all the Allied war dead, nor even for all those who died at Ypres. Instead, it contains only the names of those who died during the first two years of the war at Ypres, and only those whose bodies were never recovered. There are 54,000 names.

Every night, at 8 PM (save during World War II), a volunteer group of buglers lead a ceremony with a minute of silence and the playing of the Last Post. On June 4th, the ceremony involved a platoon of French soldiers, a British group of schoolchildren, and the B.C. Lieutenant-Governor, who all laid wreathes.