A Canadian photographer credits a "fluke" and her family vacation with landing her the role of Canada's only artist at the Vimy Ridge centennial commemoration ceremony in France next month.
Racheal McCaig says she was recommended for a spot in the upcoming ceremony based on photos she captured of the Vimy memorial, during a family vacation in Europe.
"I'm a photographer so I've always got my Canon with me," McCaig told CTV News Channel on Wednesday. She added that she went to the memorial out of curiosity on her vacation, and was struck by the scale and history of the site.
McCaig, who typically snaps photos of celebrities, will be in France on April 1 to open her photo exhibition, called "Je Me Souviens: Vimy 100." The series includes photos of the gravestones, the tunnels and the monument itself at Vimy, where Canada won a key victory in the First World War. The battle marked the first time Canada deployed all four branches of its military in combat.
McCaig admits she didn't know much about the battle until she was asked to tackle the project by the mayor of Givenchy-en-Gohelle, where Vimy is located. The mayor asked McCaig to handle the project based on her vacation photos, she said.
"It is such a vibrant way of making history real and understanding what all those soldiers sacrificed," McCaig said of the project. "Vimy is on the back of our $20 bill, so it passes through our hands every day, but I don't think we really understand what it means."
