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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Commonwealth war graves at Yorkton Cemetery in Saskatchewan. The grave on the far left is that of Leading Aircraftman Wilfred Tibbits of the Royal Australian Air Force. [Courtesy Brittany Johnson]

Caring for the fallen: A new volunteer program to maintain war graves in Canada

STORY BY RICHARD FOOT

Brittany Johnson is expecting her first baby in July. But the mom-to-be is no stranger to nurturing needy souls.

For the past year, Johnson has been carefully tending the memories of 25 veterans buried in Commonwealth war graves in and around her home of Yorkton, Sask.

She regularly visits each grave across 10 cemeteries—some on remote stretches of prairie along the Manitoba-Saskatchewan border—to inspect, catalogue and clean the headstones of men, and one woman, who served their countries in the First and Second world wars.

As a volunteer caretaker with the Commonwealth War Graves Commission (CWGC), Johnson does this out of the goodness of her heart and a desire to give back.

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Dustin Hare (centre), a non- commissioned member in the Royal Canadian Naval Reserves and the business manager of the Carpenters Union Local 1946, gives Helmets to Hardhats Canada outreach specialists Normand Trepanier (right) and Pat Rizzo (left) a tour of the London, Ont., facility in summer 2025. [Helmets to Hardhats Canada]

A conversation with Helmets to Hardhats

STORY BY ALEX BOWERS

When military veteran Justin Curtis hung up his uniform after eight years of service, he asked himself the question that countless comrades throughout the history of the Canadian Armed Forces have asked before: what next?

The challenges that others have faced in navigating civvy street were not lost on the former infantryman. Nevertheless, explained Curtis, his own transition proved to be “seamless” after discovering Helmets to Hardhats (H2H), a program that pairs military community members with jobs in the unionized skilled trades.

An impactful conversation with an H2H liaison officer set him on his chosen path. Within two days, Curtis was already in constructive talks with Halifax union representatives. It wasn’t long thereafter that he was working in construction itself.

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