Bells of Peace celebration planned across city

Bells could peal all across Niagara Falls Sunday evening, to commemorate the end of the First World War 100 years ago.

The Great War – hoped at the time to be the war to end all wars – came to an end Nov. 11, 1918.

To mark the centennial, the Royal Canadian Legion is supporting the Bells of Peace, where bells will be rung at sunset from coast to coast in communities across Canada.

“We’ve contacted the churches in our area to ask about the ringing of the bells,” said Colleen Brazeau, secretary at legion branch 51 on Fraser Street in Niagara Falls.

“It gives you the shivers,” she said, to think of communities from east to west joining together to mark the end of the war.

She said branch members will take part in the city’s Remembrance Day service Sunday, starting at 10:45 a.m. at the Gale Centre, but no Bells of Peace activities are planned for the legion hall.

In Chippawa, legion branch 396 is planning a Bells of Peace ceremony for sunset at Cummington Square on Sunday.

Trish Fischer, second vicepresident at the branch, said she hopes churches in the area will ring their bells and the community will join in at Cummington Square, where she hopes to have 10 people to help ring a Navy bell to mark the occasion.

At legion branch 479 on Spring Street, first vice-president Elaine Hall said plans are being made to mark the Bells of Peace at the cenotaph on the branch site.

The legion shares the building with the Royal Canadian Navy Association and she said they’ll do it together.

In 1918, when the Great War ended on Nov. 11, church bells across Europe tolled to announce the return of peace after four years of war.

Worldwide, an estimated 8.5 million soldiers and 13 million civilians died as a result of the war, according to the Encyclopedia Britannica.

At the start of the war, Canada was a self-governing dominion of the British Empire that did not control its own foreign affairs.

While Canadian authorities could plan the country’s war effort, legally Canada entered the war the minute Britain declared war in August 1914.

According to the Canadian

War Museum, from a population of just under eight million, 619,000 Canadians enlisted to fight in Europe and 424,000 ended up serving overseas.

At home, hundreds of thousands more were involved in supporting the war effort through work and donations.

Nearly 60,000 Canadians died during the war, including more than 51,000 directly due to enemy action. A further 172,000 were wounded. The museum estimates seven per cent of the population wore a uniform at some point during the war.