An item from the Legion Magazine that may be of particular interest to members. Note that the Juno Beach Centre themselves are less concerned with the development itself, and more concerned with the fact that the developers will need to use the sole road to the commemorative centre during the building process – effectively choking off any traffic to the historic and memorial sites.

Photo credits: JBC

French developer plans condo complex on Juno Beach

STORY BY STEPHEN J. THORNE

A French developer is planning to build a 70-unit condominium at the site where Canadian troops landed on D-Day, desecrating what opponents to the project are calling hallowed ground.

Local authorities in Courseulles-sur-Mer awarded a construction permit for Domaine des Dunes in February 2019. The two four-storey buildings are to go up just metres from Juno Beach, where Canadian soldiers fought and died during the June 6, 1944, invasion that marked the beginning of the end of Adolf Hitler’s reign of terror.

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Photo credits: Wikimedia

Fighting at forts of the Niagara front

STORY BY SHARON ADAMS

The Niagara River runs roughly south-north between Lake Ontario and Lake Erie, a vital transportation—and once communication—line in the Great Lakes. To safeguard their interests, Europeans bent on colonization and economic gain built forts at the river’s source on Lake Erie and its mouth on Lake Ontario.

In 1812, the river marked the border between the state of New York and the British colony of Upper Canada. The United States wanted to erase that border and absorb Canada—or British North America as it was known as the time—into its union.