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As a guide at Vimy Ridge and Beaumont-hamel on the Somme, Sophie Nicholson shows visitors what happened to their ancestors who fought in the trenches 100 years ago.
A century after the guns fell silent, a battlefield guide from Bible Hill is keeping the memory of fallen Canadian soldiers alive.
As a guide at both Beaumont-Hamel and Vimy Ridge, Sophie Nicholson fields frequent requests from families of soldiers hoping to find their ancestors’ final resting place in France, as well as tour groups wishing to learn more about the First World War on its former frontlines.
“Going up to the monuments at each site, I’m absolutely speechless, because it’s so peaceful now, knowing what happened a hundred years ago,” said Nicholson, who is three months into a four-month work placement in France, organized by the Department of Veterans Affairs. “The memorials were not erected to glorify war, but to honour the sacrifices of the Newfoundlanders and Canadians at the time.”
Parts of the old battlefields have been preserved, including some of the trench networks that millions of Allied and German soldiers once fought in.
A section of a former observation trench, once located opposite the German army positions and no- man’s land, can still be seen at Vimy Ridge. Nicholson and her fellow guides from across Canada often escort visitors through such places.
In other areas, shell holes from artillery rounds can still be seen.
Today, trees have been planted near the preserved trenches and grass grows over the bomb craters around the Somme and Vimy, but Nicholson still feels a connection to the nearly 60,000 Canadians who died fighting in Europe.
“When you do go over there, it definitely does feel like home, you feel a sense of belonging and it’s recognized even by visitors who come from all over the world,” said Nicholson.
Meantime, towns in northern France and Belgium once devas- tated by fighting have long since been rebuilt.
Nicholson herself is living in Arras, today a bustling market town 180 km north of Paris. However, Arras’s streetside cafes, baroque buildings and numerous bike lanes hide a tragic wartime history.
Two huge battles between the Allies and Germans were fought in Arras in both 1914 and 1917, leaving the city in ruins.
During the second battle, soldiers from New Zealand dug a tunnel network to help Allied forces move around, as street fighting raged above ground.
The battles for Arras were just two of many between 1914 and 1918. The First World War left a total of nearly six million Allied soldiers dead.
Many of the fallen from Canada, Britain, France and elsewhere were only in their twenties or late teens, some being even younger.
“They were Canadians, essentially just like us, but they didn’t have the opportunity to travel or explore the culture, because they were fighting a war,” said Nicholson.
“We like to talk of how the soldiers went over there and fought and died, but a lot of them were our age. The guides are mostly in their early 20s. One of the guides just turned 19.”
While Nicholson herself does not have any known family connection to the First World War, one of her colleagues had a great uncle who died at Vimy Ridge.