From Eaglesham School Teacher Mike McKay:

This is the 7^th year that we have dug trenches and slept in them.  This was the coldest year we have experienced.  The temperature was only -12, but the unrelenting wind caused a wind chill factor of -20.  We had 20 students from Eaglesham School in Alberta participate and 2 soldiers from the Edmonton Garrison who drove 500 km to join us.  The soldier brought a typical winter warfare kit to share with the students:  An army tent with a liner, a lantern and a Coleman stove and army rations for breakfast the next morning.  And a toboggan to pull them.

We started from the school on Sunday afternoon, Nov. 10th, approximately 1 mile from the trench site.  The students marched in a line, carrying their own gear and took turns pulling the fully loaded toboggan.  We started digging at 4:00 pm and finished in the dark around 7:30.  By this time we were warm, but if you stopped for a break you soon got cold again.

At 7:45 we formed up and marched about half a kilometre to the community hall where the local ladies auxiliary fed us a plain and simple stew.  Every year I ask them to make it watery and awful (like World War One stew supposedly was) but they keep making it wholesome and tasty.  God bless those ladies and their love for the kids.

We practiced for next day’s community remembrance service until 10 pm.  The ceremony consists of a Powerpoint presentation where we review Canada’s participation in war (Northwest Rebellion, Boer, WW1, WW2, Korea, Gulf, Afghanistan) and peace.  Each student presents at least one “portrait of Remembrance” where they present a Powerpoint slide showing a family member who served.  Here is an example of my slide, showing my Grandfather:

Sergeant Clarence McKay

•    Served with the Princess Louise Fusiliers (Halifax) machine gun regiment.
•    Fought in Italy and Holland
•    Afterwards would never speak of the war;
•    And we will remember him.

Over the years, we have had students contribute portraits of Remembrance of not only Canadians, but from members of the German, American and Finnish armies.  Also of note is that some students get quite excited and prepare more than one portrait of remembrance.  This year we had adults in the audience get up and present their own portraits of remembrance.  We want the kids running this ceremony, but we anticipate more adults contributing in the future to truly make it a community endeavor.

We went back to the trenches and students made their trenches ready for the night.  They were allowed to bring two blankets each; two wool blankets being the basic issue for a ww1 soldier.  At one in the AM, one soldier took the senior students west on “patrol” while the other soldier took the junior students east.  Somehow, in the fog of war, the patrols ended up intersecting in the dark resulting in much confusion and hilarity.

The students then tried to make themselves comfortable for the night.  The routine was supposed to be two hours sleeping and two hours on duty.  But the struggle to keep warm saw a lot of students stay up and walk around the area just to keep warm.  We were briefly rewarded by display of northern lights that resembled a “celestial firestorm” of reds, greens and blues.  But it didn’t do much to raise the temperature and the wind continued to blow.

By 7 pm everyone was eagerly waiting for the sun to rise.  It was so cold at that point that 20 participants gathered in the 10 man arctic tent to cook army rations.  The heat and steam from the Coleman stove soon had eyelids drooping as students struggled to stay awake.  Students were then evicted from the tent one by one as parents and loved ones came to see the trenches.  At 9 am we filled in the trenches and marched off to the hall to begin our Remembrance Day ceremony.  We finished the ceremony by watching a very moving tribute to Canada’s fallen in Afghanistan and then laid wreaths at the cenotaph next door.

The next day at school the kids are moving slowly.  They are still tired and most of them report sleeping 12 hours following the activity.  However most of them want to participate next year.  When asked for their comments, most of them say that they couldn’t believe how cold it was and that our soldiers had to endure long stretches of adverse conditions.  They conclude by saying how fortunate we are that Canadians have served so that we might enjoy the freedoms we now enjoy.

Mike McKay