It’s said to be the largest indoor Remembrance Day service in Canada, bringing upwards of 8,000 people to SaskTel Centre on Saturday morning.
For many, it’s a day to remember and a moment to pause and mark the sacrifices made by countless men and women.
Hundreds marched in the parade as Saskatoon residents and local dignitaries watched on.
Among them was veteran Gerry Tait, who laid a wreath at the cenotaph during Saskatoon’s 86th annual service.
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“It brings back lots memories,” Tait said. “I was in the Korean War for nearly two years, way back from 1950 until the middle of ’52.”
More than 26,000 Canadians served in the Korean War, which lasted three years.
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Organizers said Saskatoon’s high attendance turnout is likely because “there were a lot of serving people that came from Saskatoon and Saskatchewan.”
“There’s family connections there, going back to the First World War and even farther,” Brent Wignes, the chairman of the citizens’ committee, said.
This year’s focus was on the 100th anniversary of the Tuberculosis Veterans Association (TVA), which formed to help those returning from the First World War.
“It was a veterans group that was looking after veterans coming back who had tuberculosis, because they weren’t recognized as being disabled, or eligible as a patient because there was nothing visible there,” Wignes said.
In 1926, the TVA, along with other small veteran organizations, evolved into one organization that is now known as the Royal Canadian Legion.
A special section was created within the Canadian Legion known as the Tuberculosis Veterans Section (TVS). Saskatoon is home to one of only three TVS groups in Canada.
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