Two Montreal high school students will walk in the footsteps of Canadians before them in an upcoming tour of Vimy Ridge.
Lauren Roy, 16, and David Wagner, 15, will head to France as part of the Beaverbrook Vimy Prize, an annual scholarship that unites youth from Canada, the U.K. and France to learn first-hand about the role their nations played in World War I.
"I expect it to be inspiring and maybe emotional. I have no idea. I've never been there before so it's exciting," said Roy, whose great-grandfather fought on the battlefield.
The Battle of Vimy Ridge marked a major victory for the Allied Forces, but was marred with heavy losses – more than 3500 Canadian soldiers sacrificed their lives in the 1917 fight.
The first time troops fought from all four parts of the country as a cohesive front, historians regard the battle as laying the foundation for an independent Canada.
After the European trip, funded by the Vimy Foundation, Roy and Wagner will be responsible for teaching others about Vimy Ridge and how it helped define Canada as a nation.
"The foundation really advocates living history and really going and living through the experience," said Kathy Kaufmann, general manager of the Vimy Foundation.
Wagner is philosophical about the forthcoming trip.
"If we want to know what society will be like in the future, probably the best way is to look at the past, to see how things have changed," he said.
