Remembrance Day Events in Vancouver plus Canadian Campaigns
Like many folks, Remembrance Day is a reflective day for me – and one of conflicting emotions. As a pacifist who abhors war, i feel the best way to honour veterans is to work with full…
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Remembrance Day Events in Vancouver plus Canadian Campaigns
Like many folks, Remembrance Day is a reflective day for me – and one of conflicting emotions. As a pacifist who abhors war, i feel the best way to honour veterans is to work with full human intelligence, intellect and emotion to prevent war and senseless killing.
With this in mind, i take the day to remember the fallen who fell victim to the myriad atrocities of war and enjoy tracking down the stories of Canadians heroes like Talbot Papineau and watching historical documentaries about the wars and other efforts to make peace.
A couple years ago, i recorded a podcast series called White Poppies for Remembrance discussing the various emotions stirred up in my belly while reflecting on the vast lost human potential.
Last year, my pal Trauben and I stood out in the rain at Cates park for a sea-born ceremony and then hiked the Baden Powell trail from Seymour to Lynn Valley – he’s a former Air Cadet and me a cub scout so we’re well used to rainy ceremonies ;-). I also make sure to hear bagpipes each year.
Remembrance Day at UBC
This year, i think i’m heading to pay respects at UBC War Memorial Gym – built to honour soldiers by students, UBC’s architecturally advanced for its time is hosting a Remembrance Day ceremony
ergo:
This year, the Remembrance Day ceremony will be held on Wednesday, November 11 at 10:50 a.m. It will be an opportunity to honour and remember all those who served in times of war, military conflict and peace.
This year, 2009, we commemorate two special and historic milestones, the 65th Anniversary of D-Day and the Battle of Normandy and the 100th Anniversary of the Canadian Red Cross. In recognition of the completion of the restoration work on the Memorial Wall, this year’s guest speaker, Lieutenant-Colonel (retired) Donald G. MacLeod, CD, BA’ 53 will focus his address on the Korean War.
Everyone is welcome to attend this annual ceremony — doors open at 10:00 a.m. The ceremony will commence at 10:50 a.m. and will last for approximately 45 minutes. Light refreshments will be served after the ceremony and all are welcome to stay.
Remembrance Campaign
CDN Veterans Affairs asks How Will you Remember?
Download Canadian historical war time photo and video packs, organized by theme and era, then remix and share via social networks including Veteran Affairs own Youtube channel and Facebook page plus web graphics to promote the campaign.
Finally, you can choose a Postcards for Peace + RSS feeds for convenience and a Google map of Remembrance Day Activities across Canada – though the info for the Vancouver events was incomplete – ditto for the HTML version of Remembrance Day events.
{note: good effort and great idea but would be better if photos were preview-able or the packs described – really a lovely use of public archives}
Vancouver Remembrance Day Events
Basically, in Vancouver, your options are: Victory Square, Canada Place – closed caption of Victory Square ceremony, Grandview Park, Stanley Park, or Memorial Park South (Vancouver’s original Cenotaph IIRC).
Here are details from Remembrance Day ceremonies at Vancouver City Parks:
Remembrance Day Ceremony November 11th at Memorial Park South East 41st Avenue and Prince Albert Street.Ceremony begins 10:30 am March to cenotaph at 10:15 from John Oliver SS. Sponsored by the Royal Canadian Legion Branch # 16. Memorial Park South event program
Remembrance Day Ceremony November 11th at Grandview Park Sponsored by the Royal Canadian Legion #179 at 11 am located at Commercial and Cotton Drives. A march to the cenotaph begins at 10:35 am from Napier Street and Commercial Drive.
Remembrance Day Ceremony November 11th at Stanley Park Gather at 10:40 am Sponsored by the Japanese Canadian War Memorial Committee at the Japanese Monument near the Stanley Park Pavilion.
Remembrance Day Ceremony November 11th at Victory Square Gather at 10:30. Major representation by civic officials at 11 am at Cambie and Hastings Streets. A colourful parade precedes the event. Event details
In North Van, you can attend the Victoria Park Cenotaph with a parade to Lonsdale and 15th.
Consider taking along some White Poppies for Remembrance on Postcards from Gravelly Beach podcasts
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A Choogle and a Postcard
Finally finished off the White Poppies for Remembrance series on Postcards from Gravelly Beach with moments to spare before Remembrance day (being a year since i recorded the content). Tis a narrative on the go in London musing on the celebratory artifacts of wars gone past. I enjoyed Remembrance day ceremonies on the Ceeb from a cottage on Sechelt inlet on the Sunshine Coast. Meandering Past Monuments of Remembrance – Postcards #49
And part three of my ongoing documentary of a rock n’ rol trio bound for adventures from their humble base in a distressed logging town (OK that all sounds too dramatic but whatever …), Choogle on rolls out more Numbskulz conversation and more pod-debuts of tracks including a revamped Lifestyles. The post has heaps of links to bonus Numbskulz media. The Numbskulz Grow Up and Rock Out – Choogle on #55
Meandering Past Monuments of Remembrance – Postcards #49
Wrapping up the White Poppies for Remembrance series with a narrative late-night wander through Westminster, London, DaveO meanders past military monuments, victory squares, cenotaphs, palaces, royal parks, war museum, war chambers, riot fences, war protesters, churches, parliament and finishing at St. James park for a sitdown under a weeping willow to consider monarchy, individual rights and responsibilities, and the role of class division in waging war as London’s sirens, trains, and Big Ben fill the night.
Care for a stroll? Meandering Past Monuments of Remembrance – Postcards #49 (.mp3, 34:19, 28MB)
Continue reading Meandering Past Monuments of Remembrance – Postcards #49
Remembrance Day Activities in Vancouver 2007
For this Remembrance day, i will be posting the final chapter of the White Poppies for Remembrance podcast series on Postcards from Gravelly Beach and then hi-tailing out of town, bound for the Sunshine Coast for some relaxing and remembering.
photo by Gazoo on Flickr
For those of you asking, here are some Vancouver 2007 Remembrance Day events via Vancouver parks board – all on Nov. 11th leading up to 11:11AM:
Remembrance Day Run – Hershey Harriers @ Brockton Oval
Remembrance Day Service – City Legion @ Grandview Park
Remembrance Day Service – Royal Canadian Legion #16 @ Memorial South Park
Remembrance Day Service – Japanese Canadian Memorial Society @ Japanese War Memorial, Stanley Park
Remembrance Day Service – Royal Canadian Legion #179 @ Victory Square Park
Peace to Soldiers and Strangers – Postcard #48
Back home on the North Vancouver porch, Dave reads from Clay Mcleod’s essay Why I Don’t Wear a Poppy while sending peace and resistance towards the decent lieutenant Magnum in Iraq and the Philippines along with earnest comrades at arms and peaceful strangers in war torn lands. Plus he admonishes the Canadian Legion for blocking the sale of white poppies while banjo-ist Wm. Lenker sings from the woodshed and The Grateful Dead leave this Brokedown Palace … on my hands and my knees, I will roll roll roll …
Sit for a spell with Peace to Soldiers and Strangers – Postcard #48 (.mp3, 16:58, 13MB)
Thanks to:
Clay Mcleod, “Why I Don’t Wear a Poppy” from the TheTyee.ca, Nov. 9 2005
Grateful Dead, Brokedown Palace, Dec. 06 ’92, Tempe AZ, (Hunter/Garcia)
Wm. Lenker recorded in his Steamboat Island woodshed by Uncle Weed
Meganpru for album photo (this peacelovin’ woman rolls in the volksvegan)
Bread the producer for albumart design
Bonus:
Canadian Legion hassling the Peace Pledge Union folks about selling White Poppies
Be sure to order white poppies early (shipped across the Atlantic) and read the loquacious discourse on this most critical of topics. Make no mistake, the way to honour ultimate sacrifice is to ensure no such future bloodshed is required from man’s inability to get along. And we (all of us) have a right to respect the fallen in a manner which suits our conscience and not a method prescribed by the Legion or anyone else.
Here’s Peace Pledge’s quick overview:
Last year The Royal Canadian Legion through it legal representative demanded that Canadian groups stop distribution them and that the PPU stop making white poppies available in Canada, or else. That was the gist, though expressed in more formal language. According to the RCL’s legal representatives, the white poppy infringes the Legion’s poppy trademark. The PPU replied at length; our central point was that we disagreed with their argument. We have not heard from them since but the Canadian shop at the centre of this complaint regrettably had to acquiesce. You can read more about this at http://tinyurl.com/2mc7pq where you can also find out about the white poppy project and the PPU.
Following the legal threats both the promoters in Canada and Canadians who bought the poppy from us hoped that white poppies would again be available in Canada this year.
White poppies in any quantity are available from us for dispatch anywhere in the world including Canada.
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Waiting (and Resisting) in Baghdad – Postcard #47
A story about Iraqi resistance fighters and their personal motivations by a young writer called Waiting in Baghdad is the crux of the next White Poppies for Remembrance episode – read from the homeporch with a Welsh mining lantern and firetrucks rolling past. Written by Chris K, a player on a dave-coached in-line hockey team in Olympia Washington in 2002.
Hunker down for Waiting (and Resisting) in Baghdad – Postcard #47 (22:16, 21MB, .mp3)
[bunker photo by Lt. Magnum, USN]
Music
Black Angels – First Vietnam War, Snipers at the gates of Heaven
Unknown (via Trauben)
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(Meta)Physical Conditions of the Environment – Postcard #46
Taking a Remembrance Day respite to enjoy a conscious discussion with ‘Trigger’ at Vancouver’s New Amsterdam Cafe, Dave O listens to the consequences and conditions of space, in tangible and gestalt senses, and reviews the paradigm shifts of Vancouver’s downtown Eastside ‘four corners’ – once one of the grandest intersections in the British Empire.
Later, he wanders and reads Walt Whitman [When Lilacs Last in the Dooryard Bloom’d] and Gord Downie [from Coke Machine Glow] to bring it ’round home for this part #7 of the White Poppies for Remembrance series.
Cross the street for (Meta)Physical Conditions of the Environment – Postcard #46 (18:47, 26MB, .mp3)
Music by:
Drive-by Truckers “World of Hurt” via KEXP
Beethoven Sonata #14
Unnamed spacey something by Merlin (and/or Jahwah) via HempenRoad soundtrack
Sketching the Chaos of the Downtown Eastside (trigger)
discussing the conditions (trigger)
downtown eastside discourse with trigger
Dominion Building behind Victory Park and Cenotaph, New Amsterdam to left
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Awakening to the Dawn of Potential – Postcard #45
Part 6 of the “White Poppies for Remembrance” series considers the opportunity cost of the lost human potential while at the Victory cenotaph in downtown Vancouver – along the way, troubadours sing about Providence, Joyful(ness) along with spontaneous percussion-scapes and city bus brakes.
DaveO examines the value of life with Gord Downie‘s swift deconstructions of existence from Coke Machine Glow, Henry David Thoreau‘s visionary stories of perseverance and the value of the mindfulness from Walden and a personal declaration of sovereignty and dignity from original Letters from Russia read in hospital to ole gramps.
Come along for “Awakening to the Dawn of Potential – Postcard #45” (17:51, .mp3, 25MB)
Continue reading Awakening to the Dawn of Potential – Postcard #45
Righteous Declarations for Humans – Postcard #44
Part 5 of the White Poppies for Remembrance series continues with Dave at Victory Park, this time reading the United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights (adopted by General Assembly Dec. 10th 1948) with riffs on tolerance, human relations, common understanding and mutual respect, including a healthy sampling of articles on brotherhood, privacy, special treatment for mothers plus a commentary about refugee status and the illegal nature of torture and humiliating treatment.
Then brings it ’round home with a snippet from H.D. Thoreau’s Walden about sovereign man being the origin of the political state while accompanied by lively jazz (via bootleg cassette) featuring Joe Williamson and cohorts in Banff from way back playing about Peace to the Children of our Universe and Common Market offering up replinishing Refresh (ment) live on KEXP.
Listen to Righteous Declarations for Humans (.mp3, 13:24, 15MB)
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Bonus: Snapshots of Joe Williamson
by en_ns
