Alberta

Martin Avenue was dedicated to Reverend Cyril Edward Martin by the Canada Lands Company on August 15, 2007, as part of their redevelopment of Edmonton’s former Canadian Forces Base (Griesbach Barracks).

During the First World War, after Cyril enlisted at barely 16, he landed in the trenches in Belgium, assigned to the 7^th Battalion, Canadian Railway Troops where he laid tracks for running supplies to the front line. He learned all about blood, mud and gas attacks. The war shook his faith, but it did not kill it.

After the war, he attended Toronto Bible College for several years then went to Saskatchewan to preach. He attended St. Andrew’s College in Saskatoon and was ordained as a United Church minister in 1929. When the Second World War broke out in 1939, Cyril re-enlisted in the army, this time as a chaplain assigned to the 7th Field Regiment, Royal Canadian Artillery stationed in England.

After the war, Cyril continued to work in a military hospital in England. Back in Canada, he ministered at several Edmonton churches. In his 90s, he visited Vimy and Passchendaele and received the Legion of Honour from the French people. When he passed away in November 2003 at 103, he was Alberta’s last surviving First World War Veteran.

Canada Lands Company erected this memorial. The Loyal Edmonton Regiment Storyboard is dedicated to all those who served the Loyal Edmonton Regiment.

Colonel Mewburn Road was dedicated to Frank Hamilton Mewburn by the Canada Lands Company on June 23, 2004, as part of their redevelopment of Edmonton’s former Canadian Forces Base (Griesbach Barracks).

In his long medical career, Frank Hamilton Mewburn (1858-1939) offered his surgical skills in both the North-West Rebellion of 1885 and in the First World War three decades later. Born in Drummondville, Ontario, Mewburn studied at McGill, then moved to Lethbridge in 1881 as company doctor for the North West Coal and Irrigation Company. Here he did remarkable work under primitive conditions, sometimes using strange bone instruments reportedly borrowed form the local carpenter and blacksmith. Dr. Mewburn performed his first appendectomy on a pool table, whit the barber giving the chloroform. During the rebellion, Dr. Mewburn became chief of the military hospital in Winnipeg, and he was decorated for his service. he later returned to Lethbridge, where he became medical officer at the Galt hospital, surgeon for the North-West Mounted Police, and mayor of Lethbridge in 1899-1900 and 1905. Turned down for military service during the First World War, Dr. Mewburn moved to England at his own expense and became Officer in Charge of surgical division at the military hospital in Taplow, near London. In 1922, he was appointed to the University of Alberta's Faculty of Medicine as its first Professor of Surgery. To his death he was affectionately known as "the Colonel".

Canada Lands Company erected this memorial. The Princess Patricia’s Canadian Light Infantry Storyboard is dedicated to all those who served, and those who are still serving in the Princess Patricia’s Canadian Light Infantry Regiment.

Sanctuary Wood Park was dedicated by the Canada Lands Company on January 18, 2006, as part of their redevelopment of Edmonton’s former Canadian Forces Base (Griesbach Barracks). The park was named for the original Sanctuary Wood, where a Commonwealth War Graves Commission Cemetery contains the First World War graves of 1,990 Commonwealth soldiers, of whom 1,353 are unidentified.

In the early months of the First World War, as the first Battle of Ypres in Belgium raged, British troops found shelter in a pine forest they called Sanctuary Wood. It lay within the Ypres salient, a bulge in the front line where British and Canadian forces halted the German advance and held the last remaining portion of unoccupied Belgium. On 1 June 1916, the Princess Patricia’s Canadian Light Infantry relieved Edmonton’s 49th Battalion in the trenches of Sanctuary Wood. The day after the Patricia’s arrived at Sanctuary Wood, the Germans launched a massive offensive, and captured the strategically high ground of Mount Sorrel, Hill 61, and Hill 62. The Patricia’s were left exposed and lost almost half their initial strength, but they held their position. Of the units ordered to reinforce the exposed Patricia’s, only the 49th Battalion, commanded by Lieutenant-Colonel William Griesbach, arrived in time. Together they held the line. The broader Battle of Mount Sorrel ended on 13 June when the Canadians retook the lost heights, which remained in Allied hands until 1918.

Patricia Lake was dedicated to all those who served, and those who are still serving in the Princess Patricia’s Canadian Light Infantry Regiment by the Canada Lands Company on June 23, 2004, as part of their redevelopment of Edmonton’s former Canadian Forces Base (Griesbach Barracks).

Princess Patricia’s Canadian Light Infantry was founded for service in the First World War on August 10, 1914, and paraded for the first time at Lansdowne Park, Ottawa, Ontario, on August 23, 1914. Hamilton Gault, a prominent Montreal businessman, raised the regiment out of his own funds, making the Princess Patricia’s Canadian Light Infantry the last privately raised regiment in Canada.

The regiment was named after Princess Patricia of Connaught, the daughter of the Governor General at the time. Princess Patricia maintained close ties with the regiment throughout her life, and her handsewn original Regimental Colour, the Ric-a-Dam-Doo, was carried into the frontline on almost every occasion the Patricias were engaged in battle.

Over four years of fighting in Belgium and France, the Regiment established a reputation for excellence, never losing a ground on the battlefield. Vimy, Passchendaele, Ypres, Amiens, and Frezenberg stand out in history books as places where the Patricia’s demonstrated outstanding skill at arms, tenacity and courage. All three battalions have continued to train to fight, while also undertaking domestic and international operations at the behest of Canada. Domestically, the Regiment has provided battalions for service during the Winnipeg floods of the 1950s and the 1990s ice storms in Quebec, security to the G8 Summit in Kananaskis, and fighting forest fires in Alberta and British Columbia. Internationally, the Patricia’s have provided battalions for operational duty ensuring basic security and helping with humanitarian assistance. These battalions have seen service in Germany, Cyprus, the former Yugoslavia, the Middle East, Congo, Rwanda, Central America, Vietnam, Bosnia, Croatia, Kosovo, Iraq, Iran, Kuwait, and Afghanistan.

Canada Lands Company erected the Engineer's Viewpoint memorial. The Canadian Engineers Permanent Corps was established in 1903. The Corp’s mission is to contribute to the survival, mobility and combat effectiveness of The Canadian Forces. It has accomplished this task through two world wars, the Korean War, the Cold War and numerous other combat and peacekeeping missions, completing construction and maintenance of defensive works and fortifications, demolitions and land mine removal, the establishment and maintenance of lines of communications, construction of road works, airfields, and bridges, vertical construction and utilities, environmental stewardship, fire fighting, air and vehicle crash rescue, surveying and cartography. The Engineers have been represented at the Griesbach Barracks site by the 1st Airborne Field Squadron (1968-1977) and the 8th Field Engineer Regiment (1977-2001). This viewpoint, which looks toward a replica of a Bailey Bridge, was constructed by members of the 8th Field Engineer Regiment in 2005.

Ziegler Way was dedicated to Brigadier William Smith Ziegler by the Canada Lands Company on January 16, 2008, as part of their redevelopment of Edmonton’s former Canadian Forces Base (Griesbach Barracks).

Brigadier Ziegler was born in Calgary in 1911, he moved to Edmonton in 1925 and enlisted in the militia as a boy soldier. He enlisted in the 61st Field Battery of the Non-Permanent Active Militia in 1926 and by 1931 he was Battery Sergeant-Major. In 1939, he was mobilized with the 1st Canadian Division and went overseas in January 1940.

At 33 years old, he was promoted to Brigadier and Commander Royal Artillery, 1st Canadian Division who were then on Italy’s Ortona Winter Line. His skillful use of artillery and his masterful fire plans throughout the Liri Valley operations contributed significantly to the success of the Allied advance to Rome and resulted in his appointment to the Distinguished Service Order. He then went to Holland to assist with the final defeat of the Third Reich, where he received the surrender of 100,000 men. In September 1945, he received the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire in the grade of Commander.

Brigadier Ziegler served with the British Foreign Office (German Section). He was Deputy Commander Hannover Region with the Control Commission for Germany and later, until 1950, served as the Regional Administration Officer, Land in Niedersachsen.

Valour Way was dedicated to all Canadian Forces Base Edmonton's men and women in uniform by the Canada Lands Company on August 15, 2007, as part of their redevelopment of Edmonton’s former Canadian Forces Base (Griesbach Barracks).

Canadian Forces Base Griesbach was a major military facility in Edmonton from the early 1950s to the late 1990s. During that period thousands of Canada's military personnel were based here in Edmonton. Many saw duty in locations such as Korea, Cyprus, Bosnia, and Afghanistan, and with Canada's other peacekeeping missions throughout the world. Valour is the most esteemed military attribute, extreme bravery marked by a willingness to continue on effectively in the face of a high risk of injury or death. So highly is the quality prized that the word was chosen by Queen Victoria herself for inscription on the Victoria Cross. But the qualities that are reflected in valour in battle are inculcated in military personnel from the very start of their service, dedication to duty, determination, selflessness, and a mental coolness that enables the person to cope with extreme pressure and adversity.

Sir Arthur Currie Way was dedicated to General Sir Arthur William Currie (1875 – 1933) by the Canada Lands Company on January 16, 2008, as part of their redevelopment of Edmonton’s former Canadian Forces Base (Griesbach Barracks).

General Currie is considered as one of the finest commanders in Canadian military history, and as one of the most capable commanders on the entire Western Front in the First World War. Under his leadership, the Canadian Corps won a long series of battles, fighting as a unit for the first time in a major war. Currie would prove himself more than competent as a leader through his participation in conflicts such as the Second Battle of Ypres, Mount Sorrel, the Battle of the Somme, and of course, Vimy Ridge. 

Currie was largely responsible for the tactics and careful planning that led to the victory by Canadian battalions at Vimy Ridge. On June 9, 1917, weeks after Vimy, Currie was knighted and would become the first ever Canadian-born soldier to command the Canadian Corps. Currie and the Canadian Corps were then called upon to take a pivotal role in the Battle of Passchendaele. In 1918, Currie took the Canadian Corps to Amiens, where his troops halted the German offensive and began the drive to Germany (known as Canada’s Hundred Days).

Currie was respected by his men as an extremely capable planner and innovative general, who followed the progress of battles close to the action, and who would not waste their lives needlessly. Currie was the recipient of various honours, including Commander of the Bath, Legion of Honour, Knight Commander of the Order of St. Michael and St. George, Croix de Guerre and the United States Distinguished Service Medal.