U of S observes 97th annual Remembrance Day ceremony at Memorial Gates

A Remembrance Day ceremony was held at the University of Saskatchewan's Memorial Gates on Nov. 11, 2025. (Keenan Sorokan/CTV News)

Ninety-seven years after the Memorial Gates at the University of Saskatchewan campus was first unveiled, crowds continue to gather every Remembrance Day to honour those who paid the ultimate sacrifice.

For University of Saskatchewan Students’ Union president Emma Wintermute, the university’s link to military service isn’t lost on the student body.

“It’s important to be grounding myself in the history of Remembrance Day and the role that students of all backgrounds and identities played in contributing to the fight for a better future for hope, for courage, for Canadians and for, people who would inevitably come to Canada and to build, ultimately, I think, a better life,” she said.

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First displayed in 1928 by the university’s first president Walter Murray, the gates were dedicated to the 69 students, faculty and staff were killed while serving in the First World War.

There are many other memorials throughout campus that have been built over the years, and plenty of stories that go along with them.

One example the roughly 200 people gathered on Tuesday got to hear was the College of Engineering closing its doors in the 1917-1918 academic year because there were no students left take classes, or faculty left to teach them.

“Everybody enlisted,” University of Saskatchewan President Peter Stoicheff said. “And their remarkable stories of valour and courage on the part of men who returned, and on the part of men who didn’t — it’s very important.”

Stoicheff says in difficult times it’s universities that play a role in peacekeeping and building democracies, and with multiple wars happening across the world and many people experiencing “wartime misery,” Stoicheff says universities are becoming increasingly important.

“When people maybe don’t understand each other around the world the way they need to,” he said. “If they understood each other, there would be peace. Universities are part of that understanding, and I think for that reason, they’re more important now than they’ve ever been.”