Saskatoon: The Prairie Town Shaped by a Ridge

The real damage of Vimy Ridge remains outside of the statistics. Often the magnitude of war desensitizes the loss of the individuals, and statistics can be powerless without context and attachment. The true impact on my community came from the personal damage and loss of individuals. Saskatoon was ill-prepared to cope with the absence of the hundreds who fell and in accommodating the wounded men who did return. Vimy Ridge had left both a visible and intangible mark on the community. In a letter to Walter Murray (the then president of the University of Saskatchewan), student Arthur Ashley detailed the lasting damage he experienced from Vimy, “I am glad to say that so far I have managed to escape from the field with nothing more than slight gas poisoning… I returned quite well again in time to participate in the Vimy attack, which was something I shall never forget.” This great victory created a surplus of physically and emotionally damaged men that were forced to abruptly reintegrate back into society; a task which Saskatoon paid for economically and healthwise.