On April 9, 1917, some 15,000 Canadian soldiers stormed Vimy Ridge in France, beginning one of the most important battles in this nation's history.
Some 3,598 of them would not return alive, amongst them Pte. Alexander Biggan, 19, and his father, Pioneer Andrew Biggan, 41.
Almost 100 years later, student Laura Welling remembered them.
"They were father and son," said the école Secondaire Sainte Marguerite d'Youville (ESSMY) student, and they left behind their wife and mother, Ellen.
Welling said she was struck by this fact as she researched fallen soldiers as part of her school's Remembrance Day project.
"Remembrance Day has always been important to me."
Welling, a Grade 12 student and member of the 533 St. Albert Royal Canadian Air Cadets, was one of the thousands of area students who commemorated Remembrance Day this week.
While many will take part in traditional school assemblies with flags, wreaths and soldiers today and tomorrow, some took part in more elaborate ceremonies earlier in the week.
No stones alone
Some 360 W.D. Cuts students came to the St. Albert Cemetery Monday to take part in the sixth annual No Stone Left Alone ceremony, for example. Started by Edmontonian Maureen Bianchini-Purvis, the event has students lay poppies on the graves of war veterans to recognize their sacrifice in the lead-up to Remembrance Day.
About 20 Grade 5 students from Bertha Kennedy performed a similar rite Monday at the Catholic parish cemetery on Mission Hill.
After hearing speeches from active and retired soldiers, the Cuts students filed past the roughly 70 graves in the cemetery's Field of Honour and placed poppies on each, dappling the dark stones with crimson droplets.
This was the second year that Cuts students had done their Remembrance Day ceremony in this matter, said Andrew Wiens, who teaches the school's military history course.
"There's something a little more personal about it when you know the people who actually sacrificed themselves are less than 100 feet away from you."
This year, Wiens had his 15 students research the lives of the veterans buried in the cemetery to create posters others could read during the ceremony.
Grade 8 student Colby Yacey stood guard by the grave of Maj. Wallace Oaken Klatt with his poster.
"He is a veteran of the RCAF," Yacey said, and lived from 1924 to 2015.
When you look at a grave like this, you typically think, "Oh, he's a person," and move on, Yacey said.
"I wanted to give this a more personal touch."
Memorial tags
Over at ESSMY School, Welling and her fellow students were hanging about 325 paper dog-tags in their school's front lobby. Inscribed on each was the name and biographical details of a western Canadian soldier who fought and/or died at Vimy Ridge.
Teacher Gidget Bouchard, who co-ordinates the school's Remembrance Day activities, said she got the idea for the dog-tag project after reading up on the purpose of the tags in war. As 2017 was the 100th anniversary of the Battle of Vimy Ridge, she decided to have students create dog-tags of soldiers in that battle this month.
Welling has been one of the project's most enthusiastic backers, having personally completed about 30 of the palm-sized tags. There was often very little information available about these soldiers, she noted, as their bodies were never found.
"All of these people fought for our rights and our freedom," she said, and many were the same age as her.
"Look at the sacrifices these men and women were able to make so I never, hopefully, at my young age have to be able to put my life on the line for my freedom and the freedom of my nation."
The tags will hang in the school's lobby all week before being distributed to classrooms to encourage year-round remembrance, Welling said.
Events such as No Stone Left Alone and these dog-tags help students connect with the facts and statistics about war they read about in school, Welling said.
"It's giving you an idea of an actual living being that sacrificed their life for us."
Welling said she would be in the flag party at ESSMY's Remembrance Day ceremony Thursday and would march in the St. Albert one Friday.
