Lest We Forget

In this program, originally initiated by Mr. Blake Seward, a history teacher at the Smith Falls District Collegiate Institute in Ontario, high school students research individual soldiers of WWI and each year school classes visit battlefields and Canadian War Graves in Europe to honour the soldiers they have researched.

Through participation in a “Lest We Forget” commemorative journey by a group of Alberta high school students, the film takes the viewer to Belgium and France as the students visit the sites of battles the Canadian Sikhs fought in. The students, after researching the soldiers’ military records, visit the war graves of the two men who died in action, and made rubbings of their gravestones.

Along with 21 students of Ponoka Composite High School and their teacher, Ron Labrie of Ponoka, Alberta, we headed to Europe on March 25, 2010. Our trip took us to WWI battlefields near Ipes (Ypres) Belgium and south to the La Laiterie Military Cemetery where Sunta Gougersingh is buried, then into France and the Arras Road Cemetery to visit Lashman Singh’s grave. We also visited Vimy Ridge where Buckam Singh was wounded.