It's the day after Remembrance, and the day is grey and wet. I was expecting the day itself to be that way, and there was that brief bout of rain running from 930 to 1030 AM, but it didn't stick around.
We didn't get the helicopter squadron flying over the square this time. That was part of the changes that I found welcome. The most obvious part, in fact.
The last part of the ending, the part called the "Vice-Regal Party Departure" - which unofficially includes the Prime Ministerial party, truth be known - was far more relaxed. Sure, they made for the north-side "back door" of the War Memorial, but there were those crowds, so the new guy did his meet-and-greet thing. Which lasted close to a quarter-hour so far as I know. If you watched the ceremonies on TV or the Net, you might have a better idea of the exact time elapsed before they finally got into their cars.
No, I didn't go to look at all the wreaths this time out. After three hours' standing, I needed to just sit for a few minutes and then made my way up to the Peacekeepers' Monument. And then slowly back down to the Rideau Centre for lunch...and then off to Beechwood Cemetery. My family's got a plot in the Cremation Gardens, so I've got a nice and convenient excuse for visiting on a semi-regular basis.
But no. I wanted to do a walking tour of the place, west to east, and had been wanting it for a couple of years. Much of this was due to pure historical and design curiosity. The first excuse was to see the grave of Peter Henderson Bryce, whose death may have gone relatively unremarked when it happened. But there's the story of how he argued with Duncan Campbell Scott over the fate of kids forced into the Indian Residential Schools who'd come down with tuberculosis.
The story is better told by Charlie Angus, MP and musician. Or maybe Cindy Blackstock. Simply put, Dr. Bryce was a whistleblower and a hero. Neither he nor those he defended got the respect that was their right at the time.
From there, I wandered at whim through the rest of the cemetery, taking pictures as it suited me. I may post some of them on Flickr some day...
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