After the Battle of Vimy Ridge was won on April 12, 1917, Lieutenant Leslie Miller, a soldier from Ontario, gathered up a handful of acorns as a souvenir to the momentous victory. On returning to Canada, he transplanted the acorns on his land, calling his property the Vimy Oaks Farm. Today nine of the oak trees he planted are still standing on what is now the current site of Scarborough Chinese Baptist Church, Toronto, Ontario.
Scarborough Chinese Baptist Church partners with Vimy Oak Legacy, allowing them to access the site and harvest the acorns. In 2017, over 1,500 descendant trees grew at a nursery near Hamilton, with several hundred repatriated to Vimy Ridge, France in 2018. Vimy Oak Legacy has also invited planting of the young saplings in different commemorative sites all over Canada.
Leslie Miller was born October 5, 1889 on the family farm in Scarborough, Ontario. Following his studies at the University of Toronto he moved to Saskatchewan to teach. In October 1914, he enlisted as a private in the 24th Border Horse of Weyburn, Saskatchewan. He subsequently joined the Signal Corps and was assigned to the 5th Battalion.
He rose through the ranks and received a field commission as 1st Lieutenant in 1918. In the Signal Corps, he mastered the means of communication (semaphore, Morse code, even pigeons) and trained other soldiers in these same skills. He deployed wireless technology and sent, received and decoded messages. His fluency in French and German were particularly valuable for which he received commendations.
Leslie Miller’s war diary is largely devoted to the friendships he cultivated with local French families, his fellow soldiers, his interaction with German prisoners and the nature he discovered around him. Upon returning to Canada, his father gave him 24 acres of the family farm where his Vimy Oaks were growing. He replanted the oaks as part of his woodlot and named his land “The Vimy Oaks”. Leslie Miller died on December 29, 1979, at the age of 90 years.
