Highlands East’s Veterans of the Great War Web Site

During a search for information on a soldier entered into the blog I happened upon a site entitled Highlands East’s Veterans of the Great War.

As the site relates:

2014 marks the 100th anniversary of the start of World War I.

In the County of Haliburton, where Col. Sam Hughes was our Member of Parliament and the Minister of National Defence, the call was put out for each community to rally three dozen men to sign up for service. The 109th Victoria & Haliburton Battalion was formed and became part of the new Canadian Expeditionary Force.

Col. Hughes made himself available for patriotic speeches. It became a matter of honour for each village to fulfill their share of the quest to recruit the young and not so young men and women of the community.

The call to duty was originally seen as a great adventure, as most citizens thought that the hostilities would be over by the end of 1914. No one predicted that the war would last until 1918, nor that so many of our fellow citizens would die and be buried in the fields of Europe.

The site uses Google Maps to outline the location of the soldiers researched and gives basic biographical information regarding the soldier including, if available, the link to the LAC database for their attestation papers.

On my father’s side of the family we have a connection with this area. My father’s uncle William McLaren lived and worked in Harcourt, Ontario as a lumberman and has a road named after him.

Below is a map showing the “Bill McLaren Trail”. It is just east of Fishtail Lake.

It is always good to see the efforts of municipalities in preserving our history.