School Remembrance Projects

Hillcrest High School - "Stairway of Honour"

The Stairway of Honour was undertaken by Orvin Campbell who retired in 1989 from teaching at Hillcrest High School in Thunder Bay, Ontario. Mr. Campbell attended the school and was a sea cadet during the Second World War. He stated that 1,044 students from Hillcrest High School, formerly Port Arthur Tech, participated in the Second World War - 962 males and 82 females. This was an incredible participation in those days for a school with a population of 450 - 600 students. Much of the soldiers' initial training was in the school's gymnasium. Mr. Campbell attended school with many of these students and thought the Stairway of Honour would be an appropriate way to commemorate their service to Canada.

Eighty-four large portraits of students from the Second World War line both sides of the 55 stairs leading up to the school's auditorium. Most of the portraits have the rank and year of death of the student. Some portraits explain how the soldier died, but many were MIA and presumed dead. Each year, teachers from the grade 10 Canadian History course take their students to the stairway around November 11th to complete a project that deals directly with the pictures on the Stairway of Honour.

For more information on the abbreviations from the inscriptions on the portraits view the legend.