July 1 is not your typical holiday in Newfoundland & Labrador. It’s two very different holidays combined into one.

Since 1949, Newfoundlanders, like their fellow Canadians across the country, celebrate Canada Day (our “4th of July” – but with fewer parades). But in Newfoundland (which did not join Canada until 1949) July 1 has a further significance. It marks the anniversary of the Battle of Beaumont Hamel, part of the great Somme offensive of 1916. It was at Beaumont Hamel that the Newfoundland Regiment, fighting as part of the British Expeditionary Forces, was practically wiped out, suffering a 90% casualty rate. July 1 is our Memorial Day.

I taught for 33 years at Memorial University of Newfoundland. Many people over the years have been curious as to why the university is called “Memorial.” The answer is that it was built (in the 1920s) and dedicated to the memory of those hundreds of Newfoundlanders who were killed during the Great War. A local poet Robert G. MacDonald wrote a sonnet for the occasion. While purists may not consider this as “great poetry” (whatever that might be), it does capture the sentiment and spirit of the times – and serves as an appropriate remembrance.


Inscription (Robert G. MacDonald)

Because they rest in grim Gallipoli;
Because they sleep on Beaumont Hamel’s plain;
Because beneath the ever-flowing main
Their bodies find a grave eternally
Till the Last Call: in memory of them we,
Whose land and theirs they saved, that not in vain
Their lives were given, have reared this fitting fane
For many generations yet to be.
Here shall the ancient lore of Rome and Greece,
The learning and the science and the art
Of England, Flanders, Italy and France,
Flow in a stream that plays its generous part
To fertilize the mind of youth, to advance
And foster progress in a world at peace.

(from Arms and the Newfoundlander: Poetry of the Great War, edited by Elizabeth Russell Miller (Cuff Publications, 1994)