11,285 Names Inscribed on the Monument

The names of 11,285 Canadians are engraved across the monument’s walls. These honour the Canadian servicemen who fell in France during the First World War and whose bodies were either never identified or never found, and have no known grave.

Walter Allward the architect designed a distinctive alphabet for the names. He decided the names would be written in continuous bands around the walls arranged in alphabetical order.

Once the list of names had been prepared, templates were attached to the walls and the names were then etched into the surface of the monument with a sand blasting machine.

The task was begun in 1929; completion took many months, possibly as much as two years.