Not Flanders Fields Traditional Cache
Skookum Bear: As there has been no response from the cache owner, I am regretfully archiving the cache.
If the cache owner would like to replace a cache at this location, please submit a new geocache listing and it will be reviewed under the current Geocaching guidelines.
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IN FLANDERS FIELDS - John McCrae
In Flanders fields the poppies blow
Between the crosses, row on row,
That mark our place; and in the sky
The larks, still bravely singing, fly
Scarce heard amid the guns below.
We are the Dead. Short days ago
We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,
Loved and were loved, and now we lie
In Flanders fields.
Take up our quarrel with the foe:
To you from failing hands we throw
The torch; be yours to hold it high.
If ye break faith with us who die
We shall not sleep, though poppies grow
In Flanders fields.
John McCrae was a Canadian doctor with the allied forces at the battle of Ypres in World War I, and he wrote this poem after a friend was killed in the fighting. November 11 is marked in Canada and other countries as a Day of Remembrance of those lost in war, and the above poem is often recited at memorial services across the country.
Mountain View Cemetery in Vancouver, BC is the final resting place of more than 12,000 veterans of the various wars in which Canada has been involved, 320 of them First World War burials which lie in a special Soldiers' Plot. It is the second largest "Field of Honour" in Canada. The veterans' graves in Mountain View Cemetery are mostly along the western edge of the cemetery, and the cache site overlooks a flag marking some of them. If you look behind you when you find the cache, you'll see another flag marking a memorial to the veterans. (It's worth walking around to visit it, if only for the amusing sign at the west entry to the memorial.) The monuments along the walk at the memorial were erected in 2005, the Year of the Veteran, and commemorate 939 unmarked graves in the three main Fields of Honour.
The Commonwealth War Graves Commission commemorates another 110,000 Canadian war dead in 75 countries around the world, including the Belgian areas referred to in the poem.
At the eleventh hour on this November 11 and every November 11, many Canadians will pause for two minutes to remember all those lost lives.
Please be respectful; the cache is not inside the fence.
(Bring your own pen. Please don't try to remove the container; it opens on the bottom and there's an inner container for the log. The flora would appreciate being handled gently.)
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Additional Hints
(Decrypt)
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Treasures
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