Nova Scotia author and photographer Len Wagg says his new book, “At Home and Beyond: Honouring Canada’s War Dead,” focuses on the people behind Canada’s war graves and monuments.
The Story
HALIFAX — Nova Scotia author and photographer Len Wagg says his journey began more than 30 years ago, when he was on assignment in Italy and accepted an invitation to visit the Agira Canadian War Cemetery in the Sicilian town of Agira.
Wagg said that walking through the cemetery, he felt the significance of the immaculately manicured lawns and the rows of headstones bearing the names of Canadians who served during the Second World War.
He later wrote a story for the Halifax Chronicle Herald, and said the response stayed with him. Wagg recalled hearing from people in Nova Scotia and the United States who “knew their father had died overseas but they didn’t know where it was,” and who first saw where his father was buried through the headstone’s image.
For the past five years, Wagg has travelled across Canada and Europe photographing war graves, monuments and other sites for his new book, “At Home and Beyond: Honouring Canada’s War Dead.” He said the project captures well-known locations such as Vimy Ridge and Juno Beach, as well as the grave of poet John McCrae, while also telling stories of people who care for the sites and contribute to honouring Canada’s war dead.
Wagg said more than 110,000 Canadians are buried overseas at more than 5,800 sites, and that another 27,000 have no known graves after going into battle and disappearing. He said he is not a historian and did not want the book to focus only on monuments, so it includes chapters dedicated to war nurses, organisers behind newer memorials such as the Last Steps, and stories of individual soldiers.
Among the individuals featured is Pte. George Lawrence Price of Port Williams, N.S., described as the last Commonwealth soldier to die in the First World War. The book’s profile places his death at 10:58 a.m. on Nov. 11, 1918—two minutes before the armistice took effect.
Wagg also highlights Sarah Lockyer and her team in the Department of National Defence’s casualty identification unit in Ottawa. The unit uses tools including DNA analysis to identify Canadians whose unmarked graves are still being found in Europe, and Wagg said that once identified, service members are given full military funerals in France.
“One of the quotes from (Lockyer) was, ‘They gave their lives for the country. It’s the least we can do to give them back their names.’ And that was something I found very powerful,” Wagg said.
The book’s foreword is written by Warren (Whitey) Bernard, a 91-year-old Tofino, B.C., resident who was the subject of a 1940 photo titled “Wait for Me Daddy.” Wagg said he had wondered what happened to the little boy in the image and later met Bernard, describing that meeting as a high point of his career.
Bernard said he has been interviewed many times over the years but was impressed by Wagg’s approach. “I appreciated the way he was taking this on,” Bernard said. “When guys like Len come along, they’re not trying to get the story for a five-minute or a two-minute shot.… They’re interested in the story. I was really impressed.”
Wagg said he believes how Canadians view the country today is connected to what it did in the First and Second World Wars—particularly in Europe, where graveyards are maintained and ceremonies are held. He pointed to the “Last Post” at the Menin Gate memorial in Ypres, Belgium, and said he hears the same message from the young people involved in caring for the monuments.
Wagg called it “a generational gratitude,” saying the stories young people hear at home help explain why people in their 30s and 40s continue the work of maintaining war sites and commemorations.
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