Once again, the Whitehorse Remembrance Day Ceremony will take place Nov. 11 at the Canada Games Centre (CGC)
Over the past few years, the Royal Canadian Legion Branch 254’s Remembrance Day Ceremony, in Whitehorse, has faced numerous challenges, being that it is a large event open to the public, with various COVID restrictions. With things mostly back to normal, as they have been since the pre-pandemic days, the small but dedicated team behind the ceremony is hard at work making sure everything is ready to go.
“We’re always busy prepping for this thing; we started a couple months ago,” said Whitehorse Legion president, Joseph Mewett. “The Remembrance Day Ceremony is on the 11th and there are lots of moving parts for it. Trying to get everything together is good, though. It’s not a small thing.”
Mewett said there have been some “growing pains,” over the past few years, in grappling with the restrictions placed on large public gatherings. With some smaller versions and live-streamed footage taking over the ceremony during the heights of the pandemic, last year, the ceremony was held in its usual form, but Mewett believes some people were still nervous about attending large gatherings.
“This year, we’re getting a lot of interest because the paranoia is dying down a little bit. People are getting used to it and going with the flow,” said Mewett. “We’re hoping this year will be a bigger turnout. The CGC is putting out more chairs on the floor, from my understanding, because they don’t have the spacing restrictions they had last year, so that’s better.”
In addition to the large public ceremony, the Legion also runs a smaller ceremony in each of Whtehorse’s three retirement residences. A few years ago, when Mewett was in the military, he participated in some ceremonies in retirement residences down south, meant for those who weren’t able to make it to their community’s main ceremonies due to mobility restrictions or health reasons.
“The older people are the ones that, in some cases, lived it or experienced it,” Mewett said. “When we moved up here, we decided to take it to them. We basically took the Canada Games Centre ceremony and condensed it. We go in, myself and two or three other veterans; we have to keep it small because they don’t have a lot of space and we don’t want to bring outside contaminants in. But we go in, do a little bit of a welcome, play “O Canada!” for them and do a little bit of a ceremony.”
These smaller ceremonies don’t happen right on Remembrance Day, but in the few days leading up to the main ceremony. Typically, they are only around 15–20 minutes long, and Mewett said the community members appreciate still being able to take part in a ceremony for Remembrance Day. He also said that sometimes the veterans stay for up to an hour talking and sharing stories with the residents. During COVID, the Legion was not able to visit the homes at all, so Mewett is looking forward to bringing the small ceremonies back this year.
With the public ceremony, Mewett believes being open to the public and having public involvement is an important component.
“The public has relatives that served,” he said. “There’s a family history there and sometimes that history affects the current families. They’ve heard the talk of things but might not actually understand it. It’s important for a couple of reasons: It’s a community event and the community needs to get together and remember this. It’s history and we don’t want history to be repeated. History can’t be changed, but we don’t want it to be repeated.”
While younger generations today may not have direct family members who served in WWI, Mewett noted that there are hundreds of veterans of different wars living in the Yukon, including three WWII veterans, and many people might have family ties to some of them. Understanding history is still important for those who did not experience it, and attending a ceremony is a different experience than learning about history in class, according to Mewett.
“People have to realize there are still veterans here, and that’s part of the reason for this,” he said.
Mewett also attends the Remembrance Day ceremonies in the schools and hopes the students find it valuable to gain some insight from veterans themselves.
“When you learn history, you’re doing the bookwork,” he said. “It’s totally different to hear a veteran’s perspective on things.”
This year’s Remembrance Day Ceremony will once again be held Nov. 11 at the CGC. The Cenotaph Guard marches at 10:25 a.m., so spectators are asked to be seated before they begin. The event is open for the public to attend and will include a speech from veteran John Nysted. To learn more, visit whitehorselegionbranch254.ca
