At Home in Belgium

Between the deliciously potent beer, mouth watering chocolate, charming European cityscapes and the outstanding hospitality, our time in Belgium has been very enjoyable. We have been taken in by family like I never expected. To explain the family link, the story starts a few generations back. In the years before WWI broke out, my great grandfather Archie (at the age of 22) left Belgium for the United States amid some lean economic years in search of a better life. After spending a few years working on farms in Minnesota and North Dakota (where my grandmother was born), he migrated north and eventually settled in Saskatchewan. He never returned to Belgium nor saw anyone from his family again. It really is an amazing tale. As Canada is such a relatively young country, we Canadians who are 3rd or 4th generation Canadians don’t really think of our lineage tracing much past the pioneers who settled Canada. I think it is different for 1st or 2nd generation Canadians as things like the internet, ease of air travel and even cheap long distance calling has allowed the link to be maintained. However, things were different at the turn of the last century and most families were permanently severed from their mostly European roots. Mine was really no different except that in 1992, a few Belgian relatives decided to travel the long distance to Canada to attend a family reunion. This reconnected the broken link for my family. Since then, Christmas cards have been sent regularly and we’ve had return visits, but I had not directly experienced our homeland yet.

When my parents decided that they were going to Belgium, I really had no excuse not to bully my way into their travel plans. As I fly through Europe so often on my way to and from work, it was relatively simple to alter my travel plans by catching a 40 minute flight from Frankfurt (on my regular travel route) to Brussels. Getting Melissa here to join in on the European adventure was as easy as calling Air Canada and trading some of my accumulated air miles (earned by spending way too much of my life sitting on airplanes) for a return flight to Europe.

We’ve had a very busy time between visiting with many different relatives, seeing and experiencing the history of the Belgian cities, enjoying the beer and chocolate and even taking a side trip into Germany (where the rest of my family comes from). However, two things have made this trip unique from any other I have taken. I touched on the first earlier, but reconnecting with family and the history of my family has had a strong affect on me. As an adult, I have a stronger appreciation of knowing my roots. After spending time in Belgium, I have developed a sense of pride in where my people come from. I always had the narrow mindset that my family’s origins were from rural Saskatchewan. I knew that we were of European descent, but I didn’t know what that meant. I’ve always thought of myself as Canadian, which I am, but this experience adds a new dimension. I now know that my family’s history traces beyond small town Saskatchewan back to an area of Europe that is rich in history and culture. I am happy to have made the connection at a young age and am hoping to take advantage of my frequent travels through Europe by visiting again in the next few years. I am also looking forward to being able to reciprocate the hospitality to those who have been so generous with us during our time in Belgium.

The second lasting effect was visiting a part of Europe that was directly contested over during WWI and WWII, the two most significant events in modern history. We spent some time in museums learning about the wars, but it was seeing the cemeteries of Flanders fields that makes the war much more real than I have ever felt it before. The farmland around Ieper (where my family origins are) has become the final resting place to tens of thousands of WWI soldiers who died on the war’s western front. We visited several cemeteries but the most impressive was the Tyne Cot Cemetery. This is the largest Commonwealth war cemetery in the world. There are almost 12,000 burials in the cemetery, over 8,000 of which are unidentified. These graves are simply marked with the words “A Soldier of the Great War - Known unto God”. Even more sobering is the memorial wall that flanks the north eastern boundary of the cemetery. The wall holds the names of almost 35,000 servicemen who died in the area whose graves are not known. Seeing the massive loss of life represented by the headstones and names on the wall really resonates. The people of Belgium are extremely grateful to those who fought to protect their country and commemorate these efforts in a number of ways. One touching tribute in Ieper is the playing of the Last Post every evening at 8pm inside the Menin Gate monument. After all these years, a large crowd continues to show up nightly to attend the simple ceremony.