Have you ever wondered what the battles at Flanders Fields looked like?
It’s an event forever etched in history, but a new exhibit at the Jasper-Yellowhead Museum and Archives is attempting to showcase it and other events from the First World War in a unique and engaging way.
The centerpiece of the newly unveiled exhibit is a series of miniature models, laid out in painstaking detail, featuring interpretations of several scenes from the war’s history.
The models were built and donated to the museum by J. Chris Dunlop, who’s better known around Jasper by his nickname: Z.O.
Dunlop is somewhat of a war buff and, according to the museum’s exhibit designer and coordinator Val Delill, created many of the scenes by himself, essentially from scratch.
The models are incredibly detailed, composed of individually painted model soldiers and hand-built replica tanks, which are arranged in trenches, grasslands and muddy battlefields.
Delill is thrilled to have the models as part of her new exhibit, which she created to coincide with the centenary of the First World War. She said she loves the detail, which upon close inspection reveals skeletons being eaten by rats in foxholes, or poppies growing in a battlefield.
The models attempt to give museum visitors a sense of the various tactics that were used over the course of the war, and Delill thinks they accomplish that, while bringing to life events that happened long ago.
“It really gives you a feeling for what they did to the landscape; it gives you a feeling of what people went through,” Delill gushed during a recent interview. “They are incredible pieces.”
Adding an extra level of engagement to the exhibit is important to Delill, who said she tries hard to keep the memories of those who fought in the war in people’s minds.
“I’ve been a cadet, so for me it’s always been important that people remember what people went through for us,” Delill said. “We have such a great country, such great freedom that many people don’t have—so don’t anyone forget why we have it.”
That is the reason she named the exhibit “We Have Not Forgotten.”
Along with the miniature models, the exhibit also contains some artifacts, including one of the infamous Ross Mark II rifles. The Ross rifles were notoriously heavy and unreliable for trench warfare, and were often discarded by Canadian soldiers in favour of their fallen British allies’ weapons.
The exhibit also highlights what Delill thinks is one of the most heartwarming moments of the war: the “Christmas Truce” of 1914, where for one day German and Allied soldiers left their trenches to fraternize and even play soccer.
“It was a pretty incredible story,” Delill said. She urged anyone looking for an interesting perspective on First World War history to drop by the Showcase Gallery and check out the exhibit.
“We Have Not Forgotten” opened Oct. 10, and will run until Nov. 15.
Trevor Nichols
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