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We Will Remember

Canadian Armed Forces

We will remember them.

For the veterans of the Canadian Armed Forces — those still with us, those who are not, and the people who waited at home. Regular Force, Reserve, and Canadian Rangers.

They shall grow not old, as we that are left grow old:

Age shall not weary them, nor the years condemn.

At the going down of the sun and in the morning

We will remember them.

Remembrance Day is 11 November.

Keep two minutesHear a sitting
A single red poppy resting on dark stone.

Interviews

Their pictures. Their voice, still playing.

Sittings with Canadians who are serving, or who have served. Photographs from the conversation, and the recording of it. Open one person and move through the pictures — the voice does not stop and does not start over.

Open the sittings

Who this is for

One cloth. Three elements. Every kind of service.

The Canadian Armed Forces is the Royal Canadian Navy, the Canadian Army, and the Royal Canadian Air Force. Before 1968 they wore those names as separate services. The people who served under either arrangement are veterans of the same country. So are the ones who never saw a declared war: peacekeeping, NATO, the North, search and rescue, and the years of training that nobody photographs.

This page is not the Department of National Defence, Veterans Affairs Canada, or the Royal Canadian Legion. It does not publish a roll of names. Verified names belong to the Books of Remembrance and to the cenotaph in your town.

  1. 01

    Royal Canadian Navy

    Ships, submarines, and the people who kept watch on the Atlantic, the Pacific, and the Arctic. Battle of the Atlantic Sunday falls on the first Sunday in May, and it includes the Merchant Navy who sailed with them.

  2. 02

    Canadian Army

    From Vimy and the Scheldt to Kandahar, and the floods and fires at home. Regiments tied to towns. Reservists who train after work and deploy when the call comes. Canadian Rangers on the land they know.

  3. 03

    Royal Canadian Air Force

    Fighters, transport, search and rescue, and the crews who flew under a United Nations flag. Battle of Britain Sunday is the Sunday that falls between 15 and 21 September.

Already on the calendar

Days Canada already keeps

A short list, not a history of every operation. Dates follow the commemorations kept by the Canadian Armed Forces and by Veterans Affairs Canada.

  1. 9 April

    Vimy Ridge Day

    The Canadian Corps took Vimy Ridge between 9 and 12 April 1917. The Canadian National Vimy Memorial in France names Canadians of the Great War who have no known grave.

  2. 6 June

    Juno Beach

    Canadians landed in Normandy on 6 June 1944. The date sits inside a longer war: the Atlantic, Italy, the air war, Hong Kong, Dieppe, and the liberation of the Netherlands.

  3. 27 July

    Korean War Veterans Day

    The armistice was signed on 27 July 1953. Canada marks Korean War Veterans Day on that date.

  4. 9 August

    National Peacekeepers’ Day

    Since 1948, more than 125,000 members of the Canadian Armed Forces have served on peace-support missions. The day is 9 August because nine Canadian peacekeepers were killed that day in 1974, when their aircraft was shot down over Syria. The national ceremony is held on the Sunday closest to the date, at the Peacekeeping Monument in Ottawa.

  5. 8 November

    Indigenous Veterans Day

    A day set aside for First Nations, Inuit, and Métis veterans, whose service was long under-recognized and whose paths home were not the same as everyone else’s.

  6. 11 November

    Remembrance Day

    At 11:00, two minutes. The Act of Remembrance is read at cenotaphs across the country. The Books of Remembrance in the Peace Tower are the verified rolls. This site does not try to replace them.

The Act of Remembrance

Two minutes

They shall grow not old, as we that are left grow old:

Age shall not weary them, nor the years condemn.

At the going down of the sun and in the morning

We will remember them.

Laurence Binyon wrote the stanza in 1914. At Canadian cenotaphs the gathered answer is the last line, said again. You can keep the silence here. Nothing is recorded.

Ready

Two minutes have not started.

Private to this device

A name you carry

Some names are cut into a cenotaph. Some are across the kitchen table. Write one here — living or gone. It stays in this browser and is never sent anywhere. This is not a public roll, and it is not checked against the Books of Remembrance.

On this device

Reading this device…

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    The institutions that already do this work