The Saanich War Memorial – a nearly two-metre high block at Saanich municipal hall on Vernon Avenue – has a story to tell. It's a story that spans just over 100 years and has been kept alive thanks to the dedication of various Saanich residents throughout the years.
It all started July 19, 1919, at the Dedication of Peace Memorial Gore, held at the corner of Shelbourne and Church streets (Gore Park) to honour the 6,000 British Columbians who didn't return from the First World War.
'The maple Leaf, our emblem dear,
The Maple Leaf forever!
God save our king, and Heaven bless,
The Maple Leaf forever.'
These patriotic words were sung ripe with fresh emotion as part of the program that day and followed the planting of a maple tree by Premier S.F. Tolmie. There was also a Peace parade, and later that evening, a great bonfire of reverence on Mount Tolmie.
Largely responsible for arranging the ceremony was Mr. A.E. Horner, who once lived on Kisber Avenue and was elected to Saanich council in 1920.
The ceremony was significant not only for honouring the fallen but also for how it would later shape Saanich.
Two years after the ceremony, on Oct. 2, 1921, Shelbourne Street was dedicated as Memorial Avenue or Road of Remembrance, the first of its kind in Canada.
One thousand six hundred London plane trees were planted down Shelbourne from Mount Douglas Park to Bay Street, each representing a B.C. life lost in the First World War. Originally, one tree was to be planted for each of the 6,000 lives lost but there was not enough room for all the trees, according to Saanich Archives.
Time passed, and the area became more developed. In 1956, a proposal came before council to erect a gas station at the very corner where the memorial stood at Gore Park.
Mr. Horner, the man behind the 1919 ceremony, came forward to protest its construction. He reminded Saanich citizens of the memorial ceremony and the importance of the small piece of land.
“The hope was expressed that this plot of land should still be kept sacred to the memory of those who gave their lives in the service of their country and that, perhaps, one day a suitable cairn might be erected,” reads a letter in the Saanich Archives from George R. Pearkes addressed to municipal hall. Pearkes was a Saanich councillor at the time, and previously a soldier.
Horner's petition to Saanich council worked, in part due to Pearkes support, and the parkland was dedicated ad infinitum as a memorial to fallen heroes.
In 1957 a peace memorial – consisting of a 1.7-metre high block of granite on a concrete base with a roughcast finish – was constructed and unveiled on Nov. 11.
But, for the next decade, the neighbourhood continued to develop and community debate emerged over whether or not the memorial should be moved.
In 1970, the mayor at the time, Hugh Curtis, told the Times he never felt a proper sense of reverence for the dead at the Shelbourne Memorial at Gore, which was described as a "small stone standing on a patch of grass beside a new hamburger stand on the other side of Shelbourne to the shopping centre."
“You are surrounded by a sea of noise and I can’t properly honour the dead in that location,” Curtis had said.
Following a zone meeting of the Royal Canadian Legion in 1969, it was "unanimously agreed" that the area's branches would have no objections to its relocation to the municipal hall, according to a letter provided by Saanich Archives.
“[The move] would enhance the memorial in that it would no longer be located in a rapidly expanding commercial area," read the letter.
In 1971, the memorial was relocated to the southeast corner of the municipal hall front lawn.
Today, the memorial remains, honouring the memory of the war dead from 1914 to 1918, 1939 to 1945 and 1950 to 1953 (Korea) along with Major Ernest W. MacQuarrie CD, MA, BD (ceremonial chaplain, 1972 to 1993). Gore Peace Memorial Park also continues to exist as a bright patch of green.
