GUELPH, Ontario — November 4, 2019 — For the 75th anniversary of the Dutch liberation in May 2020, Karen Hunter will walk in the footsteps of the Canadian troops in the Netherlands, and she wants other veterans’ descendants to join her. “We are the next generation—the baby boomers—and it’s now up to us to carry the remembrance torch,” she says.
In Our Fathers’ Footsteps is a not-for-profit, Camino-inspired pilgrimage that will be educational, cultural, spiritual, and most important, honorary. “I hope to attract 200 descendants from across Canada who, like me, want to honour these 175,000 Canadian veterans,” Hunter says.
The group will walk 60 km of researched routes of the 1st, 2nd, and 3rd Canadian Divisions, in “platoons” with professional guides. They’ll hold candlelight vigils and flower ceremonies at Canadian war cemeteries and monuments, attend official Dutch remembrance ceremonies, and celebrate the veterans’ legacy of freedom and friendship with locals at liberation festivals. Along the way, they’ll eat from mess kits, plant Maple saplings, and dedicate a Memory Box.
“The highlight will be our walk, as a large contingent, with Canadian flags and a military band, into Het Loo Palace in Apeldoorn where we’ll be met by Princess Margriet,” Hunter says. The 13-day pilgrimage leaves Canada on April 29th and returns May 11th (or May 7th, if preferred.) “IOFF isn’t a tour. It’s a unique remembrance experience,” Hunter says