Emotions ran high on the first full day of touring for participants in the 2013 Legion Pilgrimage of Remembrance.  The first early morning stop was Juno Beach, where Prince Edward Island  pilgrim Thomas MacDonald plunged his hands into the icy water.

“I thought of the guys getting off the landing craft in the freezing cold, running up the beach, rounds coming around, and my eyes teared up.” This primed him for another emotional experience at Juno Centre, during the 360-degree simulation of being in a landing craft on D-Day.  “I almost broke down.”

More emotional experiences and encounters are anticipated as pilgrims visit battlefields, graveyards and monuments commemorating the Canadian contribution to the First and Second World Wars in northern France, Belgium and the Netherlands.