A short segment of the trenches used in Canada to train First World War soldiers has been restored and opened to the public.

About 350,000 Canadian soldiers trained at Camp Borden in Ontario during the First World War. Here they were they were introduced to the rigours of warfare in 18 kilometres of training trenches, knowledge they carried with them are put to good use in battles at Vimy Ridge in France and Passchendaele in Belgium.

The Halton Images website has a photograph from about 1916 of the training trenches .

Over the nine decades since they were first dug, the trenches collapsed and filled in, leaving but faint footprints of history–little more than ruts through the woods  at CFB Borden, about 100 kilometres north of Toronto, where about 15,000 military personnel are still trained each year.

A team of eight engineering soldiers, using hand shovels in order to ensure minimal disruption, redug a 50-metre section of the training trenches. The walls were braced with wooden planks, and topped with sandbags.  Plaques have been placed nearby to  tell the story of this unique Canadian site, which opened to the public Remembrance Day.