PHOTOS: RAY DICK

From top: The crammed interior of 1RCHA’s gun park at CFB Shilo; the Vimy building at Kapyong Barracks in Winnipeg.

When the foreign troops left Canadian Forces Base Shilo in southwestern Manitoba in 1999, they left a void some people thought would be very hard to fill. But six years later, the base is not only still functioning as an active training centre, it’s gaining new buildings and new arrivals.

Area business owners, wheat farmers and residents have thrown out the welcome mat to several hundred members of the 2nd Battalion Princess Patricia’s Canadian Light Infantry, (2PPCLI), who have moved bag and baggage from their former home in Winnipeg.

The move means the Patricias have joined the other units at the base, namely 1st Regiment Royal Canadian Horse Artillery, (1RCHA), a component of the Western Area Training Centre, 731 Signals Squadron, and 11 Canadian Forces Health Services Centre. The base is also “home station” of the Royal Canadian Artillery, (RCA). In the last year, investment in new construction on the base to accommodate 2PPCLI and improve other base facilities has exceeded $50 million.

That’s good news for the nearby residents of Brandon and neighbouring base communities who were suffering some pangs of economic pain after the German army called its troops home after living and training in Shilo for 26 years. With the arrival of the Patricias, CFB Shilo has a population of approximately 1,448 military personnel and 409 civilian workers. It’s expected the base will expend $82 million annually in salaries, an amount that’s sure to have a huge economic impact on the province.

An estimated 400 military personnel and civilian workers live in nearby Brandon and commute to CFB Shilo, a situation Brandon Mayor Dave Burgess calls an “extremely valuable asset, part of the fabric of our community and an integral part of Brandon for many years.”

The close relationship between the military and this prairie wheat city has been building since 1910, when Camp Sewell was established approximately five kilometres northeast of the current range boundary of CFB Shilo. The first summer concentration for the militia started on June 21 of that year and was attended by 154 officers and 1,315 other ranks. The camp was thereafter used for summer training of the militia and became a major training base in World War I. It was renamed Camp Hughes in 1915 as a compliment to then minister of militia, Sir Sam Hughes, and approximately 30,000 men trained at the camp before their battalions were shipped to Europe.

The camp saw little use as a training centre between 1917 and 1919 because training was concentrated upon sending small drafts of men to the training brigades in England, rather than raising complete battalions in Canada.

All that remains today of that early history of CFB Shilo is a small cemetery, and the partial remains of a trench area used for training that is now degraded by grazing cattle and other farm activity.

Militia training continued at the base following the war, but permanent construction in the area known today as CFB Shilo started in 1931, partially as a relief project because of the Great Depression. The army started conducting its first training in 1934 for militia artillery, cavalry and machine-gun units. It is interesting to note that ammunition expenditures were very low during the early training concentrations. In 1919, Canada was given approximately 175,000 rounds of ammunition by Britain. This cache was almost exclusively the source for artillery training ammunition until 1939, notes a background paper on the base. “Indeed, it (the ammunition supply) was so nearly exhausted that new militia batteries raised in 1937 to 1939 were not allocated any training ammunition.”

Initially used as a summer camp only, starting in 1942 Shilo was in continuous use and became a permanent base. It also became the permanent home of the RCA and is considered the home station for all units of the artillery. But in addition to the many Canadian and German soldiers who have trained at Shilo, troops from France, Denmark and the United States, have benefited from their time at the training area. The area covers almost 40,000 hectares, consisting of a mix of open prairie and woodlands, which when combined with a range of seasonal temperatures, make it one of the best training areas in the world.

The Germans were good neighbours,” says Lori Dangerfield, former president of the Brandon Chamber of Commerce and now chairman of the community Military Relations Committee. “We were sorry to see them go. They integrated into the community well. Some of them married local girls and stayed in the area.” But it was a different situation when the German troops first began arriving years earlier, she says. RCMP units from the surrounding area were put on alert for possible trouble between the troops and the locals. “We didn’t know what was going to happen,” she adds. “It turned out that there was no trouble at all.”

The decision to pull out, however, meant CFB Shilo facilities would be under-utilized, and so the Department of National Defence commissioned a study to determine the best way to redistribute its resources in Manitoba. The result was to move 2PPCLI from their home at Kapyong Barracks at CFB Winnipeg to Shilo, and early in September last year, after several goodbye ceremonies in Winnipeg, the first of approximately 150 military vehicles, many of them the latest light armoured vehicles (LAV IIIs), began the move down the Trans-Canada Highway for the some 200 kilometres to Shilo.

A visit in early October to the Patricias’ former home at Kapyong, 65 hectares of prime land in southwest Winnipeg, revealed a deserted and windswept parade square, a headquarters building and several huge housing barracks and drill halls. Keeping a lonely vigil at the base was a commissionaire at the main gate, and a PPCLI corporal and his dog outside the headquarters building. The abandoned base will be sold to the Canada Lands Company, a Crown corporation that develops valuable federal property that has been declared surplus to the government’s needs.

The Patricias, however, have received a warm welcome in Shilo, but there is bound to be a period of adjustment. “There will be challenges,” says base commander Lieutenant-Colonel Tom Doucette, a native of Buctouche, N.B., who took over command at Shilo in August 2003 after serving as staff officer with Land Forces Western Area Headquarters in Edmonton. Although he was not around to observe any adjustments when 175,000 German soldiers passed through the training program at Shilo, he feels confident the 2PPCLI will fit into the community with few problems. He says the Patricias had been in Winnipeg since 1970, and “suddenly they’re uprooted to Shilo. It must be somewhat of a shock.” The commander has done his own share of travelling, having served in transportation for much of his career as well as with United Nations and NATO forces in Israel, Namibia, Bosnia and Kosovo.

“Shilo is the gem in the middle of North America,” says Doucette. “At first people don’t want to come here. Then they don’t want to leave.” The training is cost effective. You can go out for training in the morning and go home for lunch, giving the soldiers more time with their families. “It’s like having all the benefits of a city in a small town.”

The commander of 2PPCLI expressed similar thoughts on the move as he did a walk-through of the Patricias new quarters in Shilo. “The bottom line is that we are here now,” says Lieutenant-Colonel Stuart J. Sharpe, a former military brat who was born in Iserlohn, Germany, and joined the Canadian Forces in 1980. “We have one of the best working environments, the new facilities are tailor-made for an infantry battalion and the maintenance facilities are great for our LAV IIIs. We can go out to the training area for a day and be back home at night.

“Everything for 2PPCLI was built new from the ground up,” adds Sharpe, who took over command of the Patricias in June last year just as the move to Shilo was beginning and while Winnipeg was holding various functions to say goodbye to the troops. Before taking over the reins of command, Sharpe attended the Canadian Forces Command and Staff College in 2001 and was posted to Canadian Forces Joint Operations Group in Kingston, Ont. During his tour with the group he was deployed on NATO operations in Macedonia, in Tampa Bay, Fla., and most recently to Kabul, Afghanistan, as the chief of staff for the Canadian Forces Activation Team.

“There will be a period of adjustment for the families,” he says of the move to Shilo. “Some were brought up and trained in Winnipeg. Others couldn’t get here fast enough.” But it was very early in the game and the troops were still adjusting. Some families would remain in Winnipeg for a period of time for reasons of education or employment commitments, but most have made the move to Shilo and accommodations on base or in Brandon.

One thing is for sure. “We have been warmly welcomed by the base, the city of Brandon and the surrounding communities,” says Sharpe.

The new buildings Sharpe spoke of include a garrison building, a community centre and a medical and dental facility, all projects recommended after detailed study of the requirements in responding to the large influx of soldiers and their families and for the military community of Shilo as a whole. The existing infrastructure, some of which was used by the Germans during their long stay at the base, was deemed unsuitable or incapable of expanding to meet the increased demands.

The new garrison building, constructed at a cost of roughly $40 million, has been completed and the Patricias are now settled into their new home. The building consolidates the unit’s resources and support elements in one complex.

As of last September, construction of the community centre was nearing completion. The existing community centre is spread throughout a number of dispersed buildings, including a former school. And the existing day care centre in the Military Family Resource Centre, with a limit of 56 children, is not able to cope with an influx of families and the expected 170 children. The dispersed facilities will be consolidated into the new centrally located building.

The situation is similar for the medical and dental facility now housed in temporary structures dating back to 1942. The buildings were deemed to present a significant health and safety risk, taking into account the addition of almost 700 personnel. A new $3.6 million facility is being built to provide modern, cost-effective facilities that conform to accepted health care standards.

While attention has been mainly focused of late on the move of the Patricias into the neighbourhood, you don’t have to look far for evidence that the artillery has been here since the start, first as militia units and after WW II, as a permanent home.

Major Peter Brown, a native of Brantford, Ont., who joined the Canadian Forces in 1981, has been second in command of 1RCHA since June 2003 after a tour in Cyprus and training in northern Norway. He hopes to attend Army Staff College in the summer, followed by another operational tour. He thinks CFB Shilo is a great place: “It’s quiet around here and the place grows on you.” And the coming of the Patricias has given the facility a new life and many improvements.

“The training area is great. We can hop on the guns and within a kilometre we can be shooting. It’s cold, but no worse than some. One of the first things you learn is don’t shut the vehicles off in the cold weather or they won’t start again.”

Another indication that the base is the long-time home of the artillery is the ever-expanding Royal Canadian Artillery Museum. With some 65,000 artifacts and archives, it is considered the second largest military museum in Canada, next to the Canadian War Museum. Another reminder is the RCA officers’ mess.

Mess supervisor Maggie Keating shows off an old but lovingly tended wooden table still used in the RCA Association room. A silver plate on the underside of the table dated 1759 alludes to the legend that General James Wolfe was laid out for burial on this table after he was fatally wounded on the Plains of Abraham, Sept. 13, 1759. The table was once the property of the Royal Artillery at Quebec City and was passed on to the RCA in 1871.

And in a glass-enclosed display case is another artillery treasure–the Grey Cup. “Not many people realize that Earl Grey produced two cups,” says Keating, one that is revered by football players and fans and the other now in an officers’ mess to honour the artillery.

Indications at the mess this day in late September, however, were that times have changed at CFB Shilo. Sprinkled among the lunchtime guests were members of 2PPCLI.

The next day the newly arrived infantry unit would fire up their LAV IIIs, drive into Brandon and roll through one of the city’s main streets in a convoy of more than 20 vehicles to introduce their unit to the locals. A few weeks later an official welcoming ceremony would be held, co-hosted by Doucette and Brandon’s mayor, complete with parade and VIP guests.

The roll-through of vehicles this sunny day in September, however, was just a friendly hello from the infantrymen to announce their arrival in force. Sharpe’s LAV made a slight detour to city hall to pick up the Mayor before the whole group formed up for the roll-through, the mayor decked out in army helmet and gear. A sparse crowd watched the procession, mainly because it was lunchtime on a weekday, but the mayor says “it was fun” to ride in the LAV. “We want to make sure they really know they’re welcome in Brandon.”

Military Relations Committee Chairman Dangerfield went even further. “This is a tremendous thing for the community. Hopefully they will settle in.”

Charles Carlson, president of Brandon Branch of The Royal Canadian Legion, was also looking hopefully at the latest influx of troops to CFB Shilo. He says the branch, with about 935 members, of whom five are members from the artillery in Shilo, has been going through some rough times and was just holding its own. He blames recent anti-smoking legislation—“we lost 30 per cent of our business”—and the fact that the volunteers, which the branch depends on to raise revenues, are getting old and tired.

He sees the move by the Patricias into Shilo as “a good move” for Brandon, population about 45,000. “Some of the new military families will be living in Brandon,” he says. “Hopefully some will join the branch.” Carlson says he has talked with Doucette, who encourages membership in the Legion. “We have also put a notice in the Shilo newspaper.”

President Alf Tait of Charleswood Branch in Winnipeg looks at the move by 2PPCLI to Shilo from the other side of the fence. About 15 of the branch’s 1,045 members were from the regiment’s former Kapyong Barracks. “We enjoyed a good relationship with the Patricias. We will miss them.”