A humbling travel memory about Canadian soldiers

My wife and I were interested to read about “West Van couple’s love story to be told in new Heritage Moment TV spot.” In 1982, we had been asked by a couple we had met when sailing in the South Seas, to help take their boat through the Canal de Bourgogne from Paris to Lyon. It was a 150-mile trip with 189 locks and a 3.3-km tunnel. (I wrote a book about this experience called “Travel with Me.”)

At one town on the Seine we had been reading a plaque on a street wall dedicated to Canadian soldiers, when three locals asked us if we were Canadians and then invited us back to their house. There, they opened up bottles of champagne in thanks for the help Canadian soldiers had given them.

For us, it was a humbling moment.

Patrick and Heather Hill, West Vancouver