Hill 62 Near Ypres, Belgium

Our next stop on this busy day was Hill 62 Sanctuary Wood Museum, which houses a collection of objects from the Great War. 

Hill 62 is where the Canadian Corps defended the southern stretches of the Ypres Salient between April and August 1916--the first occasion in which Canadian divisions engaged in offensive operations, denying the Germans a commanding view of the town of Ypres itself. I can't remember if the name "Hill 62" designated the meters the land stood above sea level or possibly the map location (latitude-longitude?). And I can't seem to confirm this.

After the war, a farmer returned to reclaim his land in and around what was left of the woods (called Sanctuary Woods) which he had left in 1914. A section of the original woods was cleared of debris and casualties but the farmer allowed part of a British trench system to remain as he found it.

The property is still in the hands of this family all these years later and now Jacques Schier, the grandson of that farmer, is the owner. The museum has a unique collection of battlefield relics, weapons, uniforms, bombs, and rare three-dimensional photographs, called stereoscopes, many uncensored and untouched inside special viewing boxes.

Walking out of the museum, some German grave markers reclaimed from the battlefields lay along the path. These were removed from their original burial locations after all burials were presumably moved into the formal German cemetery during the battlefield clearance after 1918. Notice the small wooden crosses nailed to the tree in the background, some with the famous red poppies attached.

Walking along the trails, you begin to notice the explosive impressions across the landscape and the preserved section of some British trench lines. When the war was over, the neighbors of Schier's grandfather filled in the trenches on their land, ploughed over the damage, and replanted their former farms. Many wanted to do everything to forget what had happened during the war. But the decision to leave it "as is" has made this family a lot of money.

Hilbren mentioned, with a knowing smile, that one neighbor's descendants have a few cows and another, some crops. And maybe Jacques isn't a happy man but he is a wealthy one (seen in the photo above, leaning over his cash box in his "cage").