Sentier pédestre en hommage aux vétérans d’Almonte

Almonte, Ontario

Type

Autre

Sentier pédestre dédié aux vétérans canadiens et inauguré en 2005 (Année de l’ancien combattant).

Le sentier pédestre d’Almonte comporte plusieurs éléments significatifs. À une extrémité du sentier se trouvent des panneaux; au centre, une rocaille, un mât de drapeau, une plaque commémorative, ainsi qu’un chêne de Vimy avec un panneau d’interprétation. Des deux côtés du sentier se dressent plus de cent érables commémoratifs dédiés aux militaires de la région d’Almonte.

Inscription

[Entrance]

Veterans’ Memorial Walkway

[Dedication plaque]

The Corporation of the Town of Mississippi Mills

Veterans’ Memorial Walkway

In honour of the Year of the Veteran 2005

Official dedication September 23, 2006

[Vimy Oaks plaque]

Vimy Oaks- Les chênes de Vimy

Certificate of authenticity

The Battle of Vimy Ridge in northern France, April 9^th to April 12^th 1917, is considered one of the the defining moments in the history of our young country. Where French and British troops had struggled and failed, the Canadians overcame great odds and eventually captured the Ridge at a cost of some 10,000 casualties. Leslie Miller of North Scarborough, Ontario, served with the Canadian Expeditionary Force, and amidst the carnage and destruction on the battlefield, gathered up a handful of acorns from a partially buried English oak (Quercus robur) on the Ridge as a remembrance. He sent the acorns home to his family with the instructions to “plant them in case I don’t return”. In 1919, Lieutenant Miller did return, was given a 25 acre section of his father’s North Scarborough farm and transplanted the oaks along the borders of his woodlot. He named his farm “The Vimy Oaks”. Today, a number of these majestic oaks are thriving in the same but smaller woodlot and under the close care of Scarborough Chinese Baptist Church who purchased the farm property in 2002 after it had remained unworked for 30 years. There they built their place of worship without disturbing the woodlot.

In January 2014, a group of volunteers now known as the “Vimy Oaks Legacy Corporation”, decided to repatriate the offspring of these original oaks to Vimy Ridge whose oak trees had all been destroyed in the war. Acorn harvests were low that year so cuttings were taken from the strongest trees, grafted onto mature Quercus robur rootstock, and raised by NVK Nursery in Dundas, Ontario, one of Canada’s premier nurseries. Additional saplings were also planted and raised by NVK Nursery the following year from acorn harvested from the Scarborough Vimy Oaks.

This sapling is a descendant of one of the acorns sent home by Leslie Miller from Vimy Ridge.