Prince Edward Island

A monument "In honour of all who served" remembering the men and women who served in the military from the Kinkora area was dedicated on Remembrance Day 1992. It is located next to the Community Center in Kinkora. Mr. Justice Armand Desroches said during his dedication speech “In erecting this memorial and honouring our war dead and our veterans both living and deceased, we do not glorify war. Rather, we remember what has been done in the name of humanity and for the cause of peace."

This monument was erected by the Kensington Legion to honour the war dead of the First and Second World Wars, the Korean War, and the conflict in Afghanistan, as well as those individuals from the Kensington area who have served in the Canadian Armed Forces in both war and peace.

This memorial, erected by the town of Cornwall and local veterans, is dedicated to the local war dead of the First World War.

This memorial is dedicated to the local war dead of the First World War.

Erected by the Royal Canadian Legion, this memorial is dedicated to the local veterans and war dead of the First and Second World Wars and the Korean War.

A monument in memory of Captain Samuel Holland, the surveyor who mapped the Island, and who laid out its lots and parishes between the years of 1764 and 1766. Holland has left behind a legacy, particularly in the Rocky Point, and Holland Cove region. Today, a solitary Island sandstone monument stands handsomely in an open patch of grass just up from his original campsite in Rocky Point, which bears his name and brief description of his expedition in 1764.

King George III appointed Captain Samuel Holland as Surveyor-General of British North America in 1764. Holland, who was a skilled surveyor and cartographer, was given the task of providing a detailed survey of the land and water ways of the Island. He was also responsible for noting the physical characteristics of the Island such as soil quality, timber, climate conditions, as well as animal and fish species’; all of which are pertinent to colonizing a new land. Captain Holland’s North American expedition was executed in 1764, with the first stop being Ile Saint Jean. The entire survey took the better part of two years to complete. After travelling around the entire Island with dog-teams of men and canoes, he was able to devise a map with utmost accuracy, displaying every river, stream, harbour and bay. He was notorious for dividing the Island into three counties, and 67 townships, each consisting of 20 000 acres.

Post 1929, this stained glass window was designed by Luxfer Studio Ltd., Concord, Ontario. It is located at the North Aisle of Trinity United Church and honours two sons of parishioners who died in service during the Great War. The window was restored in 2005.

In this window a young knight in mediaeval armour holds a large broadsword passively by the blade as he turns to Jesus. The sword is similar to those engraved on stone cenotaphs across the Empire. The background of the picture, elegantly contained in Gothic style architectural filled with leafy ornamentation, is dark and ominous. Jesus is standing on a layer of cloud and both figures are next to the water, perhaps a reference to Prince Edward Island. Jesus holds in his hands a magnificent crown which he is about to offer to the young soldier, who has already begun to incline his head as he approaches.

This plaque is a tribute to the Canadian Merchant Navy and its vital role during the First and Second World Wars and the Korean War.

The PEI Regiment Museum highlights the history and heritage of military forces on the Island. The museum has a collection of over 4000 artifacts, some dating as far back as 1807, and various interpretative displays. One display is about Islanders who served with the Devil's Brigade. A pair of well-preserved, 117-year-old Boer War biscuits lie sealed in a glass case in Prince Edward Island's only official Canadian Armed Forces military museum. The rare artifacts were rationed to Prince Edward Island soldiers who were among the British and Canadian troops heading to South Africa.

The Prince Edward Island Regiment (RCAC) is a Primary Reserve armoured reconnaissance regiment of the Canadian Forces, Land Force Atlantic Area, 36 Canadian Brigade Group. The regiment is based in Charlottetown and Summerside.

On June 23, 2007, a formal garden over the foundation of where the Rena McLean Memorial Hospital stood, was dedicated as the Rena McLean Veterans Garden. Rena McLean, who was nicknamed Bird, was the daughter of a successful businessman and Conservative politician. A student at Mount Allison Ladies’ College in Sackville, New Brunswick, in 1891-92, she graduated from the Halifax Ladies’ College in 1896. She then studied nursing at the Newport Hospital in Newport, Rhode Island, completing her training in 1908. She was head nurse in the operating room at the Henry Heywood Memorial Hospital in Gardner, Massachusetts, when she enlisted for service in the First World War and was appointed to the Canadian Army Medical Corps on September 28, 1914.

McLean left almost immediately for Britain and in November proceeded to France with No. 2 Canadian Stationary Hospital. In Le Touquet (Le Touquet-Paris-Plage) she was one of 35 Canadian nurses who helped convert a luxurious hotel into the first hospital in France that was completely staffed by Canadians. In the spring of 1915, 1,100 Canadian soldiers, victims of chlorine gas at the second battle of Ypres, passed through the wards on their way back to Britain. Later that year McLean served briefly with No. 12 British Stationary Hospital at Rouen and then joined the Duchess of Connaught’s Canadian Red Cross Hospital in Taplow, England. After a return to Canada on transport duty, she proceeded to Salonica (Thessaloniki), Greece in October 1916, for service with No. 1 Canadian Stationary Hospital. There was controversy in Britain over nurses having been sent to the Mediterranean and all were returned the next year. McLean then joined No. 16 Canadian General Hospital in Orpington, London. Brief postings to the hospital ship Araguaya and again to No. 16 General Hospital intervened before she was assigned in March 1918 to the Llandovery Castle, which carried Canadian wounded to Halifax. She died on the voyage back to England when the vessel was torpedoed and sunk by the enemy off the coast of Ireland on June 27, 1918. All 14 nursing sisters on board perished.

Rena McLean was an attractive fun-loving woman, kind and caring. As her last letter, written on board the Llandovery Castle on June 16, illustrates, she kept her morale high in spite of the years spent in some of the worst areas of the war. “Here we are once more approaching Halifax, but still as far from home as ever... This trip more than half our patients are amputation cases and would make you heartsick only they are so cheerful and happy themselves... This may be my last trip over and, if it is, that means that I don’t get home until dear knows when, for as soon as I get to England I am going to put in for France and once there it will be hard enough to get away.”

Plaques in memory of Rena McLean are located in St. James United Church in Souris, in Mount Allison’s Memorial Library and in the X-ray laboratory at Queen Elizabeth Hospital in Charlottetown. A 200-bed hospital for veterans in Charlottetown was named after her in 1919, but was closed within a year or so. The Canadian Forces Medical Services School at Canadian Forces Base Borden Ontario gives the Llandovery Castle Award each year to the most deserving nursing officer. Rena Maude McLean’s medals are held by the Borden Military Museum, Borden, Ontario. They were placed there by Dr. Gustave Gingras following the death of his wife Rena M. McLean Gingras, a niece of Nursing Sister Rena McLean.

In August 1917, the Lieutenant Governor of Prince Edward Island A. C. Macdonald, offered the Governor's residence and grounds for a hospital for returning soldiers. The old residence underwent elaborate repairs. To the west, a new home for the nurses and to the east a 200-bed main building, 200 feet by 40 feet. A number of outbuildings followed. Architects for the project were Chappell and Hunter; the contractors were Messrs, Parkman, Hennessey, and Power. It was officially opened on August 4, 1918, and in November the first 22 Veterans arrived. On June 27, 1919, the Department of Soldiers' Civil Re-establishment, which operated the institution, officially named it the Rena McLean Memorial Hospital. By 1920, the hospital closed and was converted into a technical school. In 1924, Lieutenant Governor, Frank R. Heartz, had the outbuildings removed and renovated the Government House. Except for the nurses' residence, all of the buildings associated with the hospital/school were demolished. The nurses' residence was cut in half and towed to the west end of Brighton Road, where the halves were converted into private dwellings.