Thurber student takes in Remembrance Day ceremony in Ottawa

A Red Deer high school student has returned home from a once in a lifetime experience in Ottawa.
 
Claire Stange, a grade 11 student at Lindsay Thurber, spent a week in the nation’s capital earlier this month participating in a program called Encounters With Canada.
 
Based out of the Terry Fox Canadian Youth Centre, the program brings high school students together from across the country for different themed weeks throughout the year to learn about different Canadian institutions and develop civic leadership. Stange’s week revolved around Remembrance Day.
 
While there, Stange was privileged to participate in our country’s most well-known Remembrance Day ceremony at the National War Memorial near Parliament Hill.
 
“I’ve always watched it on TV since I was just a little kid and so I’ve always wanted to go and experience it in Ottawa live,” she says. “Just being there and seeing all the veterans, hearing the live music, and seeing the wreath-laying was such a surreal experience. There’s really no other way to describe it.”
 
Stange says her grandather’s connection to WWII and being too sick to be deployed on what became known as D-Day are what fueled her decision to attend Encounters during this particular week — she also aspires to be a social studies or history teacher.

“I’ve always been interested in Canada during the World Wars,” she adds. “It’s just something that’s always fascinated me.”

Stange’s group also had the chance to meet with veterans, the Governor General and the Belgian Ambassador, as well as take part in a special presentation on Passchendaele and visit the National Military Cemetery while in Ottawa.