The Campbell River Genealogy Society is once again honouring our fallen soldiers this year by placing Canadian flags at their final resting places tomorrow (Nov. 1). But another event happened at the cemetery earlier this week that should be recognized, as well.
According to Janice Wilkin, a director with the society, while they were researching the veterans buried in the two Campbell River cemeteries for their flag project, they found eight unmarked graves belonging to servicemen – and they decided to do something about that. Over the past two years, six of the eight graves were marked thanks to the hard work of the genealogy society and funded by Veteran’s Affairs Canada’s Last Post Fund Unmarked Grave Program and the final pair were placed at the graves of previously-unmarked veterans on Monday.
Wilkin says the official event Wednesday morning where they place flags at the graves will be open to the public and will feature students from Ripple Rock Elementary School placing poppies on the headstones of veterans with Capt. Brad Little of 19 Wing Comox leading the ceremony. Capt. Little is 19 Wing Comox’s representative of the Canadian Forces’ No Stone Left Alone program, which works to educate students about the sacrifice of our veterans. Wednesday’s event gets underway at 10:30 a.m. at the old Campbell River Cemetery site on Highway 19, but the flags and poppies will be there all month long for those who want to go pay their respects.