100 years of army history

VERNON – It’s not your typical army barracks, rather a flash back to more than 40 year ago.

The building is a complete reconstruction of what army barracks would have looked like in the 1970’s and a history lesson spanning 100 years.

The army has a storied past in Vernon dating back to the First World War

In fact, says Ron Candy, it’s likely the camp itself helped establish the town to begin with.

“During WWI you are looking at, especially during training time, something like twice the population of the town of Vernon.”

Candy is the Vernon Museum and Archives Director.

He says the army camp had a social and economic impact on the town through both World Wars and has continued to do so for the past 60 years as a cadet training camp.

Francois Arseneault was one of those cadets trained at the site in the 1970’s; he was also instrumental in getting the project off the ground gathering decade’s worth of memorabilia.

“Some of the cadets that have been coming to this camp, their moms and dads came here.  We even had a few cadets where their grandparents and great grandparents were here.”

That’s part of the reason why Arseneault undertook the task of creating the museum, “I want to have a place for the kids, the cadets, to come and take a look and see where their roots are.”

A limited budget, but a passion for this project, restored the building, originally a WWI army post office, into a look back into a hundred years of history.

Located on the site of what is now the army cadet training center, the army camp museum is one of the only of its kind in Canada and serves as a satellite location to the Vernon Museum.

It also serves as a reminder of the camp’s place in our history and well as our future.

“It was a great place for kids to be, and it still is, it still is a wonderful place for kids to be.”