Armistice and Remembrance Day

This Programme, probably from late 1918, describes a parade and service celebrating the Armistice of the First World War.

Great War veterans and militia soldiers shared the streets of Pembroke, Ontario, for the 1931 Armistice Day parade.

A Winnipeg tradition was the Armistice Day dinner hosted at the Fort Garry Hotel by the 90th Regiment, Winnipeg Rifles, to honour the battalions it had helped to recruit for service in the First World War.

In this leaflet, the Canadian Legion's Manitoba Command provided a suggested order of service for Armistice Day and reprinted John McCrae's famous poem "In Flanders Fields" - although the author's name and the date of the poem are given incorrectly.

Ceremonies that involved placing flowers on the graves of ex-soldiers were common across Canada, and usually followed the same pattern as this service in Morden, Manitoba.

John Bridgman served with the 5th Battalion, Canadian Expeditionary Force, during the First World War, and was wounded and evacuated home to Saskatchewan in 1917. Nearly thirty years later, he spoke at a Remembrance Day assembly in London, Ontario, and told high school students of his experiences during the war.

This address, read over the network of the Canadian Radio Commission on Remembrance Day 1935, compared the Unknown Soldier to Jesus Christ.

These service had all the elements that had become typical by the 1930s: John McCrae's poem "In Flanders Fields," the hymn "O God, Our Help in Ages Past," addresses by local veterans, and the Canadian and British national anthems. Note, however, the important change penciled on the bottom of the 1934 program.

The Manitoba capital first held a Decoration Day parade in 1886. The thirty-eighth such parade, like most others, featured militia units, local dignitaries, veterans organizations, and school cadet corps.

Although the Second World War had been in progress for over a year, the 1940 ceremony in the Nova Scotia capital was still focussed on the First World War.