When the Venturer Scouts from Lac La Biche set off on their three-week trip through Europe, to see the sights and visit WWI and WWII war memorials and famous battlegrounds, little did they know they would reunite a long-lost war hero and his elderly
When the Venturer Scouts from Lac La Biche set off on their three-week trip through Europe, to see the sights and visit WWI and WWII war memorials and famous battlegrounds, little did they know they would reunite a long-lost war hero and his elderly sister.
Three years ago the Venturer Scouts - a Scouts program aimed at youth 14 to 17-decided that their group project would be a trip for them and their two adult leaders to Europe. It took three years of hard work-shovelling for a number of Lac La Biche residents every time it snowed, and picking up bottles and cans from the Bold Center every week, amongst other fundraising efforts-but this summer, all their hard work paid off, and six Scouts and two adult leaders flew out of Edmonton on July 4 on their way to London.
For Scouts Jessie Dayton, 15, and Jessi Plamondon, 15, it was their first experience away from home and they were taken aback by the people and places far from the small town streets of Lac La Biche.
"I really liked London," said Plamondon. "Our hotel was right across from the museum of Natural History. The only thing is, the cars are on the left-hand side. It was scary. I kept forgetting-I almost got hit!"
From London they travelled to Paris by train a few hundred feet under the English Channel. When asked what the experience was like, Scout Scott Lloyd, 17, joked,
"It's just a big black tunnel-I was hoping for an aquarium. You know, sharks, sunken ships."
In France they visited the Somme Valley battlefields and Vimy Ridge. Terry Zitnack, one of the Venturer Scouts adult leaders told the story of 800 Newfoundlanders who were sent over the hill at Beaumont-Hamel as a diversion-only 70 came out unscathed.
"We visited tunnels and trenches that were very well preserved. We visited the military museums at Vimy Ridge. We visited Ypres, and Passchendale-that's where chemicals were first used. 'In Flanders Fields' was written there," Zitnack said, listing just a few of the stops on their itinerary.
Their trip was about more than war memorials-it was about witnessing the wider world, and the entire group came away with all kinds of surprising information.
It turns out that it is no surprise that poppies blow in Flanders fields-according to Zitnack they grow like weeds in Passchendale.
"They're like our dandelions," she said.
Lloyd was surprised that the City of Lights-Paris-was in fact something of a cesspool as well as a major metropolitan city.
"I liked Paris. It's like a real city would be like," he explained. "But It smells like a bathroom. It's dirty. And there are all kinds of scary, sinister people you wouldn't want to meet in the dark."
The group also tried all sorts of culinary delights like escargot and frog legs. When asked what frog legs taste like, Plamondon responded with only modest irony.
"They taste like chicken. Really. They're really good."
Probably the highlight of the trip was the weeklong houseboat trip down the canals of Belgium.
"All the canals have bike paths, so we did a lot of bike riding," Zitnack said. "It really allows you to peek into people's gardens and see how other people live. It was a great learning experience."
Relative found
It was at Bretteville-Sur-Laize however that things really hit home for one Venturer. It was there that Jessi Plamondon found the long-lost grave of her great-great-uncle James C. Palmer.
Palmer died when he was only 25, and the date of his death-July 25, 1944-leads Zitnack to believe that he died in a British offensive called Operation Spring. In her research, Zitnack found that on July 25 at 3:30 p.m. the North Nova Scotia Highlanders at tacked Tilly-la-Cam pagne in the South of Caen. This offensive was meant to distract the Germans from the American forces coming in further south.
The Plamondon family had not known where Uncle James had been laid to rest until only a few months before the Venturers made their trip-it turned out that his grave was right on the route of their previously planned travels. Jessi Plamondon was the first of James' relatives to ever visit his grave.
It turns out, however, that James's sister is still alive at 95 years of age, and living in Westlock. When Plamondon re turned home and showed her great-great-aunt the picture of her brother's grave-when for 60 years or more she only knew that he had not survived the war-she burst into tears and cried.
Having seen so much of the world-much more than many adults twice their age-the Scouts are looking forward to planning their next trip, likely the World Scouts Jamboree in Japan in 2015 - once they get over their latest trek.
"This took three years to obtain," Zitnack said with a smile. "We haven't really regrouped yet."
