Memorial Garden Photo Tour

2001 Tour Photo Gallery

MEMORIAL GARDEN PHOTO TOUR

The Canadian Memorial Garden occupies a wide strip of land running across the
western end of a valley, formed by a medieval quarry, which lies just to
the south of the Caen Memorial Museum.

The Memorial Garden is not an inanimate monument. It is a place
where nature, eternally renewing itself, is mingled with memories which
should also prove eternal. It is a place to remember the young men
who fought in Normandy, both those who gave their lives and those who
survived, and the places where they behaved so
bravely. With its fissured terrace the garden’s northern slope
symbolizes their descent into the turmoil of war and danger. The
grove on the southern side, conceived for quiet contemplation, symbolizes
the peace they won for all of us.

Nor is the garden’s message for Canadians only; those Norman place names are so many reminders that the
sacrifices made by our young men on their road to victory were shared by
many thousands of French civilians.

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After entering the garden, one passes the Canadian flag and four glass steles situated on a stone terrace that dominates the valley below.

The four glass steles record the names of all the Canadian units – sea, land and air – which fought in the Battle of Normandy.

Looking across the valley from the terrace, attention is drawn to a black granite slab, situated in a grove of red maple trees

The words of Virgil’s Aeneid, Nulla dies umquam memori vos eximent aevo (Nothing
shall ever blot you from the memory of time), are inscribed on the
black granite slab

From the terrace, steps connect to a path leading to the valley below.

At the bottom of the steps there is an inscription on a black granite wall.

The inscription reads:

La libération vient par la mer

Liberation comes from the sea

A winding path from the steps at the bottom of the terrace leads down to the valley, and the grove beyond, framed by red maple trees.

Looking back from the grove to the terrace wall, fissured by a vertical black granite claw, symbolizing war.

An earlier view of the terrace wall and the black granite slab, set in a pool and framed by a rectangular patch of pale Caen stone.

Looking over the black granite slab, with Virgils words, to stone benches at the far side of the grove.

Part of the stone benches showing the coat of arms of Normandy and some of the names of the 122 communes in Normandy liberated by Canadian troops in 1944. The benches remind us that the sacrifices made by our soldiers were shared by thousands of French civilians.

Photos courtesy:

C.H. Belzile, Marie-Noël Duhaime,
Jean Noël Le Montagner, and H.G. Needham