The future Rivière Qui Barre resident had enlisted in 1914, having left his home in Prince Edward Island for Calgary to get out of being a fisherman, said his son, Roy. He ended up digging trenches and dodging bullets in some of the biggest battles of the First World War. One of those bullets struck his helmet, wounding him.
“About six inches (lower) and I wouldn’t be here today,” Roy said.
Last Thursday, workers placed a monument commissioned by Roy in the Rivière Qui Barre cemetery. Engraved upon that tall black slab of granite are the names of 83 area residents who fought in the First and Second World Wars. Roy’s father is one of them.
Roy said he got the idea for this project when he visited the grave of his uncle, Moise Granger, who died in the Second World War and is buried in Normandy.
“I wanted to do something for the troops,” he said.
Sturgeon County was created just over 10 months before the end of the First World War. Scores of residents fought, died and lived through it, shaping the region for generations to come. Now, a century later, their descendants are looking back to honour their sacrifice.
Real people, real sacrifice
Students in teacher Ken Stanski’s military history class at Sturgeon Composite High School have spent this fall researching residents in the area who volunteered in the First World War.Student Areeha Mahal (whose great-grandfather Dargahi Khan fought and died in the war) said she’s been researching the life of Bertha Margaret MacIntosh, a nurse from Ontario who worked after the war at what is now the University of Alberta Hospital.
“These were grandparents and fathers and brothers of people,” she said, adding it’s easy to forget that when you’re just reading numbers in a textbook.
“I find it crazy to think that these are real people who left their lives behind.”
Some 48,885 Albertans signed up to serve in the war, reports historian Janice Tyrwhitt.
It’s tough to say how many of them came from Sturgeon, as recruits were registered based on where they enlisted (typically in the city) rather than where they lived, notes the Canadian War Museum. County-area history books suggest 35 of them came from or later settled in Rivière Qui Barre, while another 33 were or became residents of Legal. Maj. DeBlois Thibaudeau mustered an entire cavalry squadron in Morinville that later joined the 19th Alberta Dragoons. Note that Morinville and Legal would have populations of just 350 and 315 respectively (according to Alberta’s population records) in 1914.
These volunteers came from all walks of life, said Vino Vipulanantharajah of the Musée Héritage Museum – farmers, drivers, labourers, mechanics, bank clerks and one nurse, in the case of the 63 known ones from St. Albert. Many joined up out of a sense of patriotism, especially those of British descent.
While many Canadians were enthusiastic to sign up for what they believed would be a quick, glorious war – some 10,000 Edmontonians held a parade when Britain entered the war, Tyrwhitt reports – reality proved much different.
War had changed. Instead of battles fought over open plains dominated by cavalry, the First World War was a place of trenches, disease, artillery, machine guns and poison gas, where soldiers died by the thousands for a few yards at a time. Troops from the Lord Strathcona’s Horse (Royal Canadians) regiment went over all prepared to charge the enemy on horseback, but spent almost the entire war slogging through muddy, rat-infested trenches instead, said Lt. James Lee of the Strathconas.
Nurses like MacIntosh would have been close to the front lines in surgical tents, contending with horrible new wounds no one knew how to treat, Mahal said. MacIntosh also had to deal with sexism, as male doctors and patients would often balk at her attempts to take command of a situation.
By the end of the war, some 6,140 Albertans had died and another 20,000 were wounded, Tyrwhitt reports.
Back home in Alberta, families learned to dread the coming of the telegram boy with his terse memos on the fates of their sons and fathers, and pored through casualty reports that sometimes covered many columns in the papers, reports historian Mary Frances Doucedame.
The war helped farmers who were recovering from two years of crippling drought, with demand causing Prairie farmers to seed a record 40 million acres of wheat in 1915, Doucedame reports. But it hurt as well, as the war caused the cost of labour and machinery to skyrocket (a plow that cost $80 in 1917 cost $148 the next spring) and promoted poor soil practices. These factors, plus drought, frost, and crop disease, caused Albertans to have their worst harvest on record in 1919.
It also rallied citizens to collect food, clothes and cash to support the war effort. The St. Albert Women’s Institute would hold fundraisers for the Canadian Patriotic Fund, while the town’s council would lobby for a patriotic war-fund tax and pensions for veterans, reports the St. Albert Historical Society's book, Black Robe’s Vision.
Labour shortages pushed women into more non-traditional jobs as factory workers, clerks and labourers, often to the protests of men, reports Alberta Culture and Tourism. That led to better wages for women and a desire to vote, a right that most Alberta women won in April 1916.
Real legacies
The First World War was pivotal to the identity of modern Canada, with many historians describing the 1917 Battle of Vimy Ridge as the moment Canada became a nation.Every Strathcona learns about the regiment’s deeds in the war when they join up, Lee said. One such deed was the Battle of Moreuil Wood, which the unit commemorates to this day each year.
On March 30, 1918, during a larger battle near Amiens, France, Lt. Gordon Flowerdew led about 70 mounted troops around a corner of Moreuil Wood and found himself staring down about 120 German soldiers armed with machine guns, say historians.
“He knew there was nothing else to do but charge at that point,” Lee said, so charge he did, performing one of the last great cavalry charges of the 20th century.
Flowerdew and 53 of his men died, but the attack broke the German lines and won the battle, Lee said. Flowerdew received a posthumous Victoria Cross for his actions.
The end of the war on Nov. 11, 1918 saw thousands of Albertans return home to a land much changed in their absence. While some were able to find new jobs and start families, others had to endure crippling physical and psychological injuries. Some returned with the Spanish Flu, which would claim over 3,000 Albertans within a year, historian Stephani Keer notes.
Roy said his father tried farming up near Peace River on his return – soldiers were offered cheap land, loans, and training as part of demobilization, Doucedame reports – but ended up settling in Rivière Qui Barre after the government didn’t provide the tools needed to break the land. He later became the community’s postmaster.
Roy said veterans like McLellan were the folks you always saw chipping in and stepping up as leaders at community events. The family names on the Rivière Qui Barre monument – McGillis, Flynn, Sheehan, amongst others – are ones that are still commonplace in Sturgeon County today.
Today, a large brass gong commemorating the First World War stands front and centre in the lobby of the Strathconas’ regimental headquarters, which is itself named after First World War veteran Frederick Harvey. Flowerdew’s Victoria Cross is mounted on a wall a few paces away.
This year, as part of the 100th anniversary of the Battle of Moreuil Wood, about 70 Strathconas went to Moreuil Wood in France and re-enacted Flowerdew’s charge while wearing period-appropriate uniforms, Lee noted.
“The people who went to World War One and World War Two wore the same cap badge I do today,” Lee said, and share the same values of patriotism and public service.
Thousands across Sturgeon County will gather this Nov. 11 to honour the sacrifices of soldiers in the First World War and other conflicts.
Roy said he and the No Stone Left Alone Memorial Foundation would have area youths lay a wreath and poppies this Remembrance Day at the Rivière Qui Barre monument. He hoped today’s youth would take note of the people named on it.
“Freedom means a lot to you if you don’t have it.”
