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Acorn and oak tree apartments9/20/2023 Why not use Miller’s Vimy oaks to re-establish the trees in a landscaped planting around the Canadian war memorial? Three years ago, McDonald decided to pursue an idea that had percolated since he travelled to France and visited Vimy Ridge in 2004, and found no oaks growing there. When Monty McDonald visited the property in 2014, he found the oak trees - they’re English oaks, or Quercus robur - towering over the landscape. After the war, Miller planted them on his own allotted spread, which he christened as Vimy Oaks Farm. He mailed the acorns home to the family farm in Scarborough, Ont. In 1917, surveying Vimy Ridge after the battle, 28-year-old Lieutenant Leslie Miller picked up a few acorns from a shell-blasted oak tree at his feet. The conflict marked the first time that all four Canadian divisions overseas fought together under a single command. ![]() ![]() Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and Governor General David Johnston were among dignitaries at ceremonies marking the battle’s centennial at the Canadian Vimy War Memorial in April. The trees will connect U of G and other planting sites across the country with the three-day battle that saw Canadians capture a strategically important vantage point in northern France during the First World War at a cost of nearly 11,000 Canadian casualties, including some 3,600 deaths. Two oak saplings to be planted at the University of Guelph this week have roots in a Great War conflict considered by many to mark a coming of age for Canada.ĭescended from a handful of acorns pocketed by a Canadian soldier after the Battle of Vimy Ridge in spring of 1917, the Vimy oaks will be placed near War Memorial Hall and the John McCrae Trail in U of G’s Arboretum.
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