Vimy 100 event in Ingersoll

Experience life on the Front Lines of history!

On Sunday June 11th, between 10:00 and 5:00pm, you are invited to the Ingersoll Cheese & Agricultural Museum to witness and take part in VIMY 100.

This immersive interactive public event commemorating the centennial of the Battle of Vimy Ridge is part of the ongoing activities throughout Oxford County to remember Oxford’s Own, the 168th Battalion.

The entire museum grounds and all of Centennial Park will be turned into a World War One site, from the enlistment office and Parade Square, to trench warfare training and the Battle for Hill 290.

The museum is thrilled to be working with members of the History Matters Association in order to present this full day of activities and demonstrations. Help prepare comfort boxes to send overseas from the Home Front. Listen to the suffragettes argue their case for giving women the right to vote during this turbulent era. Find out the role of Farmerettes in our local fields.

Take part in basic training in calisthenics, marching, grenade toss and bayonets. Do YOU have what it takes??

The Ingersoll Pipe Band will be in attendance to provide music and a steady beat for all those wishing to march. Watch out for the sniper’s nest! Chat with the Nursing Sisters at the Casualty Clearing Station, and pay your respects at the small field cemetery.

Relax in the French tavern. Enjoy the narrated show of military fashions including British, Canadian, French, German and Russian troops. Take your picture in the period photo studio before you head to the Front Lines through the maze of trenches.

The event, sponsored in part by the Ingersoll Community Foundation, culminates with the Battle for Hill 290 and before you leave, take a moment for a humble and contrite visit to the display on the Commonwealth War Graves Commission and a conversation with a military chaplain.

All this and more will be part of the VIMY 100 event at the Ingersoll Museum on Sunday June 11th. If you have an ancestor who served in the Great War, you will not want to miss this. Come experience “some” of what they went through. Come experience life on the Front Lines of history.