Honouring Our Military Heroes

This Remembrance Day, pay tribute to our veterans at Brookside Cemetery’s Field of Honour.

Winnipeg’s proud military history is well-known. The names who have bravely risked their lives fighting for Canada’s armed forces are the stuff of legend, and will never be forgotten.

one of the most important being the Field of Honour in Brookside Cemetery.

Established in 1875, Brookside is the oldest military cemetery in the country, and the Field of Honour was opened 40 years later by the city at the request of The Daughters of the Empire (now known as the IODE). The cemetery is home to the Commonwealth War Graves Commission Stone of Remembrance, the only one of its kind in Canada (placed here partly because the commission noted Winnipeg as being the central point of the country).

Going by the credo of being “where all Veterans receive the same level of recognition, regardless of rank, race, religion or creed, while being commemorated individually,” the non-denominational cemetery is open to public viewing and tributes and has become one of the best locations for anyone who wants to learn about Winnipeg’s long history of protecting the rights and freedoms of Canadians.

To be buried inside the Field of Honour does not require someone to have received special commendation during their time of service to the Canadian military, but only to have served in Canada’s armed forces. The only need, as Jane Saxby, cemeteries administrator of the City of Winnipeg, comments, is proper documentation either of either having served or been the spouse of personnel (after or at the same time as the individual who served passed away).

“Basically, if they saw military service or if they are currently in the military, then they come to us, they ask for a place in the Field of Honour and we ask them either for their unit or military registration number,” she says. “A lot of our clients come to us via organizations via the Last Post Fund, so we know they’re already approved.”

Those who are buried at Brookside, Saxby comments, include Commonwealth forces and veterans of both World Wars, Vietnam, the Battle of Hong Kong and the Korean War.

“Generally, the people that are in the Field of Honour are people who have returned from the front sick and injured, or come back here, lived a long life and then passed on,” she says, adding that it is in the latter group that Brookside is now seeing an increase in applicants and burials.

Perhaps the most interesting dynamic about Brookside is the number of army veterans who wish to be buried there, as opposed to the  National Military Cemetery in Ottawa, where one might expect famous personnel like Major Harry Colebourne (owner of Winnie the Pooh) or Tommy Prince (Manitoba’s most decorated Aboriginal veteran) to be interred. Instead, they chose Brookside as their final resting place, in what Saxby points out is a remarkable trend across the country.

“For a lot of people, that (the National Cemetery) is second to their hometown cemetery. Some families choose for themselves, or unfortunately some parents pre-plan when they lose a child through battle. Others want to be where their families are,” she explains.

Changes to the grounds Since Brookside and the Field of Honour opened, as one would imagine, the cemetery has undergone changes.

The unfortunate primary reality surrounding this, of course, is that more of Winnipeg’s war heroes have passed away, though Saxby cannot pinpoint a reason for Brookside to have undergone such a surge in popularity in the last couple of years.

“We’ve certainly seen a lot more in the last 18 months in terms of number of interments in the Field of Honour,” she says. “I can’t say why that is, but at a guess, it’s probably linked with the age that veterans are and the increase in the numbers who are becoming deceased. I don’t know if it’s because people are more likely to choose the Field of Honour, although we know Brookside has grown considerably in the last couple of years.”

But the size of Brookside and the Field of Honour is not the only change. The cemetery has also become a major educational resource for schools (Saxby notes that more than 300 students toured the cemetery last year) and has also begun hosting functions such as receptions and parades.

Changes are also currently ongoing at Brookside, as there is a refurbishment project underway in conjunction with Veterans Affairs Canada, which will see major work done to the cemetery over the next several years.

“Some of them (headstones) are toppling slightly and leaning,” she says. “We do our best to keep them as repaired as we can, so we can work across to put new foundations in.”

When complete, the renovations to Brookside Cemetery and the Field of Honour will ensure that the lessons in this special place in Winnipeg’s military history will continue to serve the community and its heroes.