Welcome to Canada Remembers Guide! I get asked a lot if I created this website because I have family members who fought in the wars. The short answer is yes. The long answer, however, is that I would be doing this even if I did not. I am very passionate about remembering the sacrifices made by Canadians in both world wars. I created the itineraries on this website to increase awareness of the existence of the many WW1 and WW2 cemeteries and memorials in Europe and, also, to make it easier to find and visit them!
Kimberley Walker, Founder
Flags and Tears
Whether you have family who served or not, you will be moved to tears when you see how many men died there. This is a very informative and moving experience that you will never forget. I always bring a couple dozen decorative Canadian flags to lay at headstones when I visit the cemeteries. In January 2024, I took 60 flags, which, over the course of a week, I laid at Canadian headstones in 38 WW1 and four WW2 cemeteries, as well as at several memorials. At Hell’s Corner, west of Caen, I attached my flag to the memorial with a twist tie that I’d brought with me!
First Visit
My introduction to Canada’s involvement in the world wars happened in 1987, when I was a university student on a year abroad in Strasbourg, France. A friend introduced me to the family with whom she had stayed on a high school exchange and those parents were incredibly kind to me, inviting me to dinner and to join them on a family ski trip. When I asked why, the father simply and solemnly replied that his town had been liberated by Canadians when he was a child.
That conversation resulted in me digging into Canada’s role in the second world war and, in 1989, when I was back in France for a friend’s wedding, I spent a week traveling by train to the landing beaches. I will never forget how I felt when I visited the Canadian War Cemetery at Dieppe for the first time. I was shocked by the sheer number of headstones. At the time, I was 23 years old, and I had outlived many of the soldiers buried in that cemetery.
I carried on further west to the area code-named “Juno Beach” where thousands of Canadians landed at three tiny beach towns on June 6, 1944, flanked by the British at Gold and Sword and further west, by the Americans at Omaha and Utah. At the time, Canada’s Juno Beach Centre had yet to be built, but there were already many memorials to various regiments and, of course, there were the cemeteries.
Canada Remembers Guide
Since that inaugural visit to Dieppe and Juno thirty-five years ago, I have been to WW1 and WW2 sites multiple times, sometimes alone but mostly with family and friends who are interested in learning about these important parts of our history. In 2017, when I guided my father and my nephew on a weeklong trip to Canada’s WW1 and WW2 sites, my nephew told me to “write this all down so others can find this too!”. I began jotting down the places I knew, but the idea for the website happened in the summer of 2023, when a 30-year-old couple asked for my help planning a trip to the landing beaches. I was thrilled to know that young people are still interested and want to see these places.
That was the catalyst! From there, I began sketching out ideas for a logo, returning constantly to the theme of the maple leaf within the poppy. I started creating itineraries, but I needed to measure time and distance between locations and take photos, so, in January 2024, I traveled to France and Belgium where I visited 44 cemeteries and dozens of memorials. The result (so far!) is nine itineraries for one, two. and three-day self-guided trips from Paris and Brussels. This is not an exhaustive list; there are many more places to visit, and I hope to add more itineraries in the future, including adding sites in the Netherlands and in Italy.