The World Remembers

This is the Government Conference Centre downtown. It started its life as the main train station in 1912, connected by tunnel to the Chateau Laurier across the street. The government has had possession of it for many years, using it for conferences. It's been under renovation work in recent years; as part of the work on Parliament Hill, the Senate will be meeting in here starting next year for a few years. The banners hanging on the front, however, have been there for a different reason, since September.

A screen has been mounted on the west side, over the Rideau Canal. Since 2014, Canada has been participating with thirteen other countries in a program, The World Remembers, to mark centennial years of the First World War in a different way- the projection of names of those who died in each year onto the screen. 

That includes nations from both sides, listed below, with the numbers of their dead for each given year. This year the names of the dead of 1917 are projected onto that screen.

This event has been going on in the evenings since late September, ending on the night of November 10th, just in time for Remembrance Day. I returned to capture the building at night one evening in October.

Names are projected onto the screen from a projector that has been set up on a staircase across the Canal. A Canadian name is among each set, with the names around his own followed by country abbreviations. This lasts about thirty seconds before the next set of names comes up, and goes on all through the night. I found it to be a solemn, dignified, and moving form of remembrance: men who fought on opposing sides, commemorated together. Brothers in arms.