Remembering Will

We've just returned from a week long trip to Alberta and B.C. with our son and our daughter and her family, including our 5 year old grandson and 6 week old granddaughter.  We remembered William at two memorial services, in the company of many other wildland firefighters, pilots, and friends.  The highlight of our memories I think will be the permanent memorial at Hinton in Alberta.

The memorial is on the grounds of the Hinton Training Centre, where all provincial forestry and forest fire fighting training is offered.  It was a beautiful fall day when we were there, and the Aspens in Alberta are all golden.

You can see the memorial through the trees better here.  Having it on the grounds of the provincial training centre both ensures that it is seen regularly, and that it is well maintained.  We were just very impressed.

There is a central memorial, along with individual plaques for anyone who has died fighting a forest fire, embedded in the stones along the side of the pathway.

The boulder is actually a huge piece of petrified wood found in Alberta.  There is a service here annually; this year it focused on William, who was the only one who lost his life fighting forest fires in the province this summer.

The illustration on the memorial is a little hard to make out, especially as it was in a mixture of sun and shade, but it features an outline of both a helicopter and a plane dropping water, as well as a face of a firefighter.

This is the plaque for our son William.  It was a very moving few moments to be there together, and wonderful to have those memories, especially on a beautiful day like this.

Sadly, the plaque for Will is not the only one.  There are now over 20, remembering firefighters who have given their lives to protect Alberta's forests and communities.  I don't believe that there are similar memorial sites in other provinces, but we will be working to encourage their establishment.

And over the next few days I'll share some pictures of the rest of our trip.  This is at Miette Hot Springs in Jasper, along Ashlar Ridge.  The weather was like this the entire trip!  Although our grandson probably doesn't really understand why we were there, we did our best to make the trip itself memorable for him!