A photograph of the original Danger Tree at the Beaumont-Hamel battle site, taken circa 1920 by Lieutenant-Colonel Thomas Nangle, chaplain of the Newfoundland Regiment. [Memorial University Archives]

Danger Tree: A cherished symbol of sacrifice gets a new lease on life

STORY BY RICHARD FOOT

It is perhaps Newfoundland and Labrador’s most famous wartime icon. Certainly, it’s a symbol of profound sorrow among a people well-acquainted with loss and hardship.

For more than a century, the Danger Tree, or a version of it, has stood amid the green expanse of the Beaumont-Hamel battlefield in northern France as a stark reminder of precisely where so many Newfoundlanders died.

Next month, on the eve of the 110th anniversary of the Battle of Beaumont-Hamel, a new version of the Danger Tree will be unveiled at the site. This one, crafted with attention to historical detail at Memorial University in St. John’s, is intended to provide a permanent battlefield replica of the original tree.

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Documentarian Eric Brunt interviews Second World War veteran Eugene McKinnon. [Courtesy Eric Brunt]

Documentarian Eric Brunt captures the last voices of Canada’s Second World War generation

STORY BY ALEX BOWERS

Documentarian Eric Brunt isn’t in the business of irrefutable historical record. He has long understood that memories fade, that dates get lost to time and that details can be misremembered in recalling events from more than 80 years ago.

Such is the nature of interviewing the last Canadian veterans of the Second World War, a task that Brunt has undertaken for nearly a decade. Still, the 33-year-old Montreal resident affirms that his work goes deeper than facts and figures.

“For me,” he told Legion Magazine, “it’s about capturing the way these people tell their stories. Where is their emotion? Where is their lack of emotion? Where do they skim over parts? Where do they spend over an hour talking about their best friends? This is the aspect I find most fascinating.”

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