Sixty-five Saskatchewan-born soldiers who died in the D-Day Invasion during the Second World War are buried in the cemetery at Normandy.
While their final resting place is across the Atlantic, a Regina man brought a part of them back home for Remembrance Day.
Chris Harris traveled to France in the summer to take the photos, and set up a re-creation of the cemetery with his pictures in Victoria Park.
READ MORE: Regina photojournalist captures fallen heroes final resting places in Normandy
“The cemeteries that you visit, there’s thousands of these graves. Rows upon rows of these graves of young people, aged anywhere from 17 to 45,” recalled Harris.
“It’s a powerful experience, and I kind of wanted to recreate it.”
People walked among the tombstones and went from the traditional service at the Cenotaph in the centre of Victoria Park.
The photos left an impact on people like Corie White and her two daughters.
“I think it’s important to take my kids through it so that they can understand those that gave the ultimate sacrifice,” she said.
“To see the photos of the gravestones, it really starts to hit home and become real in terms of the sacrifice that was given.”
Mark Nash is from Nova Scotia and is currently in Regina for work. He’s attended Remembrance Day services across the country and said the photo cemetery is a fantastic idea.
“Gives you shivers actually, to know that these young men and women that represented our country in those wars and stuff… It was the ultimate sacrifice,” he said.
Harris recently branded his work as The Saskatchewan Remembrance Project. Next year he’ll return to Europe to continue documenting the gravesites of Saskatchewan’s fallen soldiers.
“They actually invaded Sicily in 1943, liberated Italy, and there are 246 Saskatchewan-born soldiers who are interned there,” Harris said.
He takes the photos to teach people about the war, and encourage people to remember our soldiers year-round, and not just Remembrance Day.
Harris is also planning on broadening the scope of his work to include the soldiers of the First World War as well.
“Next year is also the hundredth anniversary of the Battles of Vimy, including Passchendaele and Vimy Ridge. So that’s going to be an extremely important time for Canadian History, because that’s where Canada was born, on the battlefields.”
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