Trench Life: A Survival Guide at the Canadian War Museum
~Anna Coutts
The Canadian War Museum (1 Vimy Place, Ottawa) presents Trench Life: A Survival Guide. The exhibition runs until November 11. For more information call 1-800-555-5621.
London, ON -Death, destruction, and depression are words that usually come to mind when we think of World War One battlefields. However, people often forget that life in the trenches wasn’t always about doom and gloom.
“The First World War is remembered as mud and blood, but that’s not what the soldiers saw every day, of every second of their lives,” explains Sandra Stockley, a programme planner at the Canadian War Museum.
“We want [museum patrons] to understand that the soldiers were people. They were people first, and their experiences there can’t be summed up in the simplified ideas we have of what it was like.”
Trench Life: A Survival Guide is a new exhibit currently on display at the Canadian War Museum in Ottawa. It aims to provide insight into the culture of trench life by offering viewers a glimpse into the soldiers’ thoughts and feelings.
Coinciding with the 90th anniversary of WWI, the display unveils many of the creative ways Canada’s soldiers avoided dipping into despair.
“[The exhibition], it really talks about culture,” says Stockley. “It’s not really about war- well, it is about war- but its touches more on the culture and the life experiences of the people.”
According to media relations officer Jean-Philippe Deneault, the exhibit works to express the idea that WWI soldiers “didn’t just die, they lived.”
“What they did with their spare time - that’s the entire idea,” says Deneault. “They developed sort of a subculture, where they created images and art, and songs, and they used their words in poetry. And in more comical types of venues they did theatre, they dressed in drag, they did all sorts of things.
“It’s not a sunny exhibition by any means - trench life was horrible -but it’s more about, how did we cope with the horrible?”
The exhibition, which runs until next spring, adds a more personal twist to the museum’s permanent collection. An interactive display allows children and adults alike to explore how soldiers coped with war and boosted their morale.
“One of the big attractions of this exhibition is the fact that they actually built a programming base right in the exhibition,” says Stockley. “So as part of the experience as a visitor walking through, they’ll go through the experience of the soldiers, the content, and then they actually arrive at a café behind the lines.”
The café is designed to resemble an area where soldiers would often drink and engage in various activities, says Stockley, adding that the café also doubles as an educational activities area for children.
“So while families are there with their kids, they can take part in some of these activities with their kids,” she adds. “ [In the cafe area] we expand on certain themes that may not be accessible to all audiences; children, young children, can’t always pick up on everything that’s being read, so we try to take the highlights and make them accessible to them.”
Throughout the summer, the museum will provide weekly activities for children, including crafts such as creating maple leaf badges, trench signs, war graffiti and personalized identification.
“The idea is always to make it relevant to the people of today,” explains Stockley. “Kids can’t relate to war, but they can relate to making something of their own. It’s always a challenge to convey the intent behind an activity.”
The multifaceted exhibition doesn’t just appeal to children, however. Many of the artifacts, such as diaries, homemade art and poetry appeal to an adult audience. As well, most of the upcoming special events are adult-oriented.
“In November, around Remembrance Day, we will be bringing in a play from Calgary,” says Stockley, adding that play is a stage adaptation of Timothy Findley’s famous WWI book, The Wars.
“The content of the exhibition, the fact that it really talks about culture… [It makes] it a lot more accessible to the full range of age groups, and we are trying to reach everyone through our programming.”
