Share the Story

North Bay Veterans take centre ice tonight at Memorial Gardens as they take part in an official puck drop ceremony at the game between the North Bay Skyhawks (Junior A) and the Blind River (Junior A) to honour a most special group of people - Canada’s Veterans.

The puck drop is a special event that leads into Veteran’s Week November 5-11, 2006. This year’s theme is for Veterans' Week 2006 is ‘Share the Story’.

The local office for Veterans Affairs Canada is encouraging everyone to talk about to share personal stories of remembrance as a way to develop a deeper understanding of the sacrifices and achievements of those who served Canada.

The office to 107 Shirreff Avenue, Suite 201 has a number of events running during Veteran’s Week including the 5th annual high school art competition and an open house on Tuesday.

The art competition was open to all local high schools with students from St. Joseph-Scollard Hall and NBISIING answering a call from Veteran’s Affairs Canada submitting pieces depicting what war means to them.

The art has great depth and evokes strong emotions, so strong that office staff and vets are having a difficult time ranking pieces in order, so the public is encouraged to come in and help out by offering their opinions.

“We’re going to choose the winners by Monday (4:30pm) the public is welcome to come to Veterans Affairs Canada to view the beautiful artwork,” explains Joelle Gibson Veterans’ Week Committee member.

“Our third event is on Tuesday again we welcome the public to our event. We will have refreshments, some memorabilia and the art work will still be up here for the public to view.”

Gibson says it is critical that the stories of World War I, World War II and Korea be shared as we are loosing our veterans.

“The average age of World War II veteran is about 86-years-old and it’s time that we talked to our veterans and we find out what they went through,” she says.

“The previous years we had World War II veterans coming to our events, coming to the schools to share their stories but most of them are getting at an age where they can’t do that anymore. For health reasons obviously, so we have to reach out to them and those veterans that are able to we ask that they come forward and talk to their grandchildren to capture what they went through.”