14th Street & Lonsdale, City of North Vancouver, Canada©

2011 Remembrance Day Ceremony in Victoria Park - 11th and Lonsdale North Vancouver, BC

2011-11-11T11:00:00.000-08:00

Image via WikipediaThe 11^th hour of the 11^th day of the 11^th month - Remembrance Day Ceremony in Victoria Park - 11th and Lonsdale North Vancouver, BC

Followed by a march past 14th and Lonsdale approximately one hour later.

In Flanders Fields⁽¹⁾
By: Lieutenant Colonel John McCrae, MD (1872-1918)
Canadian Army

IN FLANDERS FIELDS the poppies blow
Between the crosses row on row,
That mark our place; and in the sky
The larks, still bravely singing, fly
Scarce heard amid the guns below.

We are the Dead. Short days ago
We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,
Loved and were loved, and now we lie
In Flanders fields.

Take up our quarrel with the foe:
To you from failing hands we throw
The torch; be yours to hold it high.
If ye break faith with us who die
We shall not sleep, though poppies grow
In Flanders fields.

Video interviews with the oldest living Canadian WW1 veteran, at 107 years in 2007 - “The Last Soldier” - YouTube Video - John "Jack" Babcock Part 1 ... Part 2. John Babcock, the oldest Canadian veteran of World War I died in 2010 at the age of 109.

McCrae's "In Flanders Fields" remains to this day one of the most memorable war poems ever written. It is a lasting legacy of the terrible battle in the Ypres salient in the spring of 1915. Here is the story of the making of that poem:

Although he had been a doctor for years and had served in the South African War, it was impossible to get used to the suffering, the screams, and the blood here, and Major John McCrae had seen and heard enough in his dressing station to last him a lifetime.

As a surgeon attached to the 1st Field Artillery Brigade, Major McCrae, who had joined the McGill faculty in 1900 after graduating from the University of Toronto, had spent seventeen days treating injured men -- Canadians, British, Indians, French, and Germans -- in the Ypres salient.

It had been an ordeal that he had hardly thought possible. McCrae later wrote of it:

"I wish I could embody on paper some of the varied sensations of that seventeen days... Seventeen days of Hades! At the end of the first day if anyone had told us we had to spend seventeen days there, we would have folded our hands and said it could not have been done."

One death particularly affected McCrae. A young friend and former student, Lieut. Alexis Helmer of Ottawa, had been killed by a shell burst on 2 May 1915. Lieutenant Helmer was buried later that day in the little cemetery outside McCrae's dressing station, and McCrae had performed the funeral ceremony in the absence of the chaplain.

The next day, sitting on the back of an ambulance parked near the dressing station beside the Canal de l'Yser, just a few hundred yards north of Ypres, McCrae vented his anguish by composing a poem. The major was no stranger to writing, having authored several medical texts besides dabbling in poetry.

In the nearby cemetery, McCrae could see the wild poppies that sprang up in the ditches in that part of Europe, and he spent twenty minutes of precious rest time scribbling fifteen lines of verse in a notebook.

A young soldier watched him write it. Cyril Allinson, a twenty-two year old sergeant-major, was delivering mail that day when he spotted McCrae. The major looked up as Allinson approached, then went on writing while the sergeant-major stood there quietly. "His face was very tired but calm as we wrote," Allinson recalled. "He looked around from time to time, his eyes straying to Helmer's grave."

When McCrae finished five minutes later, he took his mail from Allinson and, without saying a word, handed his pad to the young NCO. Allinson was moved by what he read:

"The poem was exactly an exact description of the scene in front of us both. He used the word blow in that line because the poppies actually were being blown that morning by a gentle east wind. It never occurred to me at that time that it would ever be published. It seemed to me just an exact description of the scene."

In fact, it was very nearly not published. Dissatisfied with it, McCrae tossed the poem away, but a fellow officer retrieved it and sent it to newspapers in England. The Spectator, in London, rejected it, but Punch published it on 8 December 1915.

On January 18, 1918, while still commanding No 3 Canadian General Hospital (McGill) at Boulogne, McCrae died of pneumonia. From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia: John Alexander McCrae

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2011-11-08T14:48:00.000-08:00

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You may wish to comment – at the bottom of each page; no email required. Comments will be not moderated before being published. The email address for this web site is 14thstreetregulars@gmail.com. Your back links and recommendations are appreciated.

Thank you for your constructive critiques, criticisms and encouragement over the years; particularly my video introduction. Albeit I am still working on my presentations, I hope you find these a little more polished.

Stan G. Webb's Introductory Video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QwzuTEDSEEc

NEW URL: Stan G. Webb – @ Home Website© http://www.stangwebb.com/, and

My Profile and Links to my websites https://plus.google.com/115843779221258418714/about

Index to Stan's websites:

In Canada the standard for measuring temperature is the Celsius Scale.

Obviously it's nice to have a handy (online) calculator:

Online Conversion Calculator - from AskNumbers.com , or even better

DigitalDutch.com – this not only allows Celsius < - - - > Fahrenheit conversions but additionally Kelvin, Rankine and Réaumure.

BC Spirit Square, at Central Lonsdale and 14th

2011-09-20T14:00:00.000-07:00

14th Street & Lonsdale© by Stan G. Webb© (At Large)© is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported License.

More than 49,000 citizens have chosen the City of North Vancouver to make their home.

BC Spirit Square, in Central Lonsdale in the City of North Vancouver, BC, Canada, is an open air gathering place located on the site of the City's new City of North Vancouver Public Library/Civic Centre Development. (Library Photo Gallery). The building was the winner of a 2009 BCLA Merit Award.
Reminiscent of a traditional town square, the City's Spirit Square features, or will feature, a WiFi wireless café terrace, a market promenade, amphitheatre and a 'Tree of Knowledge' reading room. There are also water features expressing First Nations values and a glass wall projection of the City's history.

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Spring Has Finally Broken Out, All Around!

2009-05-19T07:23:00.001-07:00

Rhodon, a rose + dedrone, a tree = Rhododendron (continued), is common to North Vancouver, British Columbia, indeed througout the Pacific North West, – from Alaska, south through British Columbia, Washington State, Oregon and Northern California.

Of the over 1,000 species of Rhododendron in the world, four or five species are native to the Pacific North West:

Rhododedron albiflorum which is a white rhododedron usually growing above 1,200 meters (4,000') to the tree line;

Rhododedron lapponicum (Lapland Rosebay) which is the northernmost member growing in acidic, wet and dry areas not only of Alaska and northern BC but also, in Greenland, Lapland and Russia. It is shorter than most other species, usually less that 30cm (12”) tall;

Pink Rhododedrons (California Rhododedrons);

Rhododendron macrophyllum (Pacific Rhododedrons) which grows1200-1800cm (4-6') tall;

Rhododedron Occidental (Western Azalea) which is common from Oregon, southwest to through the Cascade Range and Sierra Nevada mountains. This species can grows to 4600cm (15') tall.

They come in a great variety of colors. Blue, orange, pink, purple, red, white and yellow are quite common.

The Rhododendron macrophyllum is the state flower of Washington State. There is an Annual Rhododendron Festival held in Townsend, WA, usually in the middle of May (11 to 17^th in 2009).

Spring Has Finally Broken Out, All Around!

2009-05-19T07:09:00.000-07:00

Rhodon, a rose + dedrone, a tree = Rhododendron, is common to North Vancouver, British Columbia, indeed througout the Pacific North West, – from Alaska, south through British Columbia, Washington State, Oregon and Northern California.

Of the over 1,000 species of Rhododendron in the world, four or five species are native to the Pacific North West:

Rhododedron albiflorum which is a white rhododedron usually growing above 1,200 meters (4,000') to the tree line;

Pink Rhododedrons (California Rhododedrons);

Rhododendron macrophyllum (Pacific Rhododedrons) which grows1200-1800cm (4-6') tall;

Rhododedron Occidental (Western Azalea) which is common from Oregon, southwest to through the Cascade Range and Sierra Nevada mountains. This species can grows to 4600cm (15') tall.

They come in a great variety of colors. Blue, orange, pink, purple, red, white and yellow are quite common.

The Rhododendron macrophyllum is the state flower of Washington State. There is an Annual Rhododendron Festival held in Townsend, WA, usually in the middle of May (11 to 17^th in 2009).

Spring Has Finally Broken Out, All Around!

2009-05-19T05:43:00.000-07:00

Fowering Dogwood trees are the provincial flower of British Columbia. The bracts are normally white and the pink variety here has most likely been artificially propagated.

Spring Has Finally Broken Out, All Around!

2009-05-12T09:54:00.000-07:00

Beautiful, with a wonderful scent attracting pollinators. This year I did not notice many European domesticated honey bees. There were many native pollinators taking their place, however. Ants, Bumble Bees, Flies, Mason Bees and others have made a gracious, forgiving return.

To drive K - 142

Spring Has Finally Broken Out, All Around!

2009-05-12T09:36:00.000-07:00

A very, very late spring. Rained almost every other day in April. Wonderfully bring May flowers.

14th Street & Lonsdale, City of North Vancouver, Canada©

2011 Remembrance Day Ceremony in Victoria Park - 11th and Lonsdale North Vancouver, BC

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