STITCHES IN TIME
Tapestries remember Cape Breton military regiments
Hooked rug tapestries on display for “Cape Breton’s Military In Wool” exhibit at the Cape Breton Centre for Craft and Design
They take six to seven hundred hours to produce, with 68,731 stitches covering a canvas that measures 6 feet by 5 feet.
It started as a hobby to while away the hours in winter but Leonard Boudreau has found a new way to preserve the history of local infantry battalions.
Five of his hooked rug tapestries are now on exhibit at the Cape Breton Centre for Craft and Design in downtown Sydney. The exhibit, “Cape Breton’s Military In Wool,” will remain at the centre’s loft gallery until Nov. 17 and can be seen during regular business hours.
The exhibit features five large interpretations of the hat badges worn by those who made up the infantry battalions from 1871 to the current Cape Breton Highlanders.
It’s a complex history and if you want to know more, Boudreau will give a presentation during the opening reception today from 6-8 p.m. He also gives talks all over the island about Cape Breton’s military history, something he doesn’t want to see forgotten.
He knows his stuff. Boudreau, 68, is the former battalion adjutant of 2nd Battalion Nova Scotia Highlanders (CB). The regiment began in 1871 in Baddeck and Boudreau’s exhibit shows how all five of the Cape Breton-based regiments are linked through history and fellowship.
“Now in 1954, the government was doing changes to the military and they were combining units. In our case they combined the Cape Breton Highlanders with the North Nova Scotia Highlanders who landed at Juno Beach in Normandy and the Pictou Highlanders and they called us the Nova Scotia Highlanders Regiment — they made the North and Pictou first battalion Nova Scotia Highlanders (North) and in the case of the Cape Breton Highlanders, we were called the second battalion Nova Scotian Highlanders (Cape Breton),” said Boudreau.
“It was done to the great chagrin of a lot of veterans because all of a sudden it seemed like they were losing their regiment. They changed the hat badge, they changed the tartan of the kilt … but eventually, it settled out and as good soldiers, we carried on.”
But they weren’t happy with the changes and always made sure others knew they were from the Cape Breton side of the regiment. All that changed in 2011 when then-defence minister Peter MacKay announced that the name of the 2nd Battalion Nova Scotia Highlanders (Cape Breton) would revert to the Cape Breton Highlanders. Later that year the regiment received its hat badge and camp flag.
It inspired Boudreau to create his tapestries, based on the hat badges of the regiments of the island.
“Hat badges are so perfect — it’s a part of an infanteer’s dress that means so much — it’s fundamentally their surname,” said Boudreau. “It’s the first thing you see when a soldier approaches. You’ll see the hat badge … and it identifies you as part of a family, the family being the Cape Breton Highlanders.”
While Boudreau cuts by hand every strand of wool that goes into each stitch, in the upper right-hand corner of his first Cape Breton Highlanders work, a stitch is missing. It symbolizes those who never returned home.
“We were having our reunion so I presented that first one,” Boudreau recalls.
“At the time there was four members of the original Cape Breton Highlanders wartime attending that reunion and I told them the last stitch in the top righthand corner was left empty in memory of the boys who didn’t come home.
“And of course that struck those four Highlanders particularly hard.”
Boudreau wants everyone to make an effort to learn more about the island’s military history.
“We’re keeping their memories alive the best we can.”