Notice to visitors to the Canadian National Vimy Memorial Site

Important Visitor Information

A major restoration project is underway at the Canadian National Vimy Memorial to conserve Canada's most important monument to the First World War. The Vimy Monument, now covered under scaffolding and protected as part of an active construction site, is currently inaccessible for public safety reasons. However, the remainder of the memorial site, including a temporary Vimy Interpretive Centre and on-site cemeteries, is open to visitors. Guided tours are also available and visitors are therefore invited to focus on the subways or tunnels and restored trenches. Visitors may also appreciate the restoration work in progress through interpretive panels and viewing areas outside the stone carving workshop. The construction work began in 2004 and is expected to be completed to coincide with the dedication of the memorial in April 2007.

For more information about the restoration project, please visit Canadian Battlefield Memorials Restoration Project.

• Map of Vimy Memorial
• Fast Facts
• How Do I Get There?
• Design and Construction
• Vimy Ridge Memorial Tour (QTVR)
• Grange Tunnel Image Map
• Vimy Memorial and Trenches (QTVR)
• Vimy Interpretive Centre
• History of the Battle of Vimy Ridge
• Vimy Memorial Receives Canadian National Historic Site Designation
• Student Guide Program in France

Click on picture for larger image. (66 K)

Canada's most impressive tribute overseas to those Canadians who fought and gave their lives in the First World War is the majestic and inspiring Canadian National Vimy Memorial which overlooks the Douai Plain from the highest point of Vimy Ridge, about eight kilometres northeast of Arras. The Memorial does more than mark the site of the engagement that Canadians were to remember with more pride than any other operation of the First World War. It stands as a tribute to all who served their country in battle in that four-year struggle and particularly to those who gave their lives. At the base of the Memorial, these words appear in French and in English:

Inscribed on the ramparts of the Memorial are the names of 11,285 Canadian soldiers who were posted as "missing, presumed dead" in France.

The land for the battlefield park, 91.18 hectares (250 acres) in extent, was (as stated on a plaque at the entrance to the Memorial) "the free gift in perpetuity of the French nation to the people of Canada". Eleven thousand tonnes of concrete and masonry were required for the base of the Memorial and 5,500 tonnes of "trau" stone were brought from Yugoslavia for the pylons and the sculptured figures. Construction of the massive work began in 1925 and 11 years later, on July 26, 1936, King Edward VIII unveiled the monument.

Click on picture for larger image. (66 K)

Horticultural experts created the park surrounding the Memorial. Canadian trees and shrubs were planted in great masses to resemble the woods and forests of our country. Around the Memorial, beyond the grassy slopes of the approaches, are wooded parklands. Trenches and tunnels have been restored and preserved and the visitor can picture the magnitude of the task that faced the Canadian Corps on that distant dawn when history was made.