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London team studies tunnels at Vimy Ridge

By Chris Montanini, Londoner

Chris Montanini


How the underground tunnels and caves that housed Canadian soldiers near the front lines of Vimy Ridge aided the allied effort during World War I is uncertain.

But after the discovery of inscriptions and carvings left by those soldiers in the subterranean tunnels under Arras, France, a London-based group called The Canadigm Team is out to tell their story.

Zenon Andrusyszyn, project director and visual artist for the Canadian Historical Documentation and Imaging Group, is in France with five members of the team this week to begin photographing the marks left behind by soldiers who bunked in the caves together 94 years ago.

"It's an area that is inaccessible to the general public," said Andrusyszyn, who was inspired to start the project after watching a documentary about the subterranean discoveries two years ago.

The carvings, which include battalion badges and names of Canadian soldiers, are etched into chalk walls and are slowly deteriorating.

Andrusyszyn is hoping to document them digitally and replicate them physically using high-tech photography and GPS equipment before showing them in a travelling exhibit he wants to have open by November, 2013.

Andrusyszyn also plans to research the names written on the tunnel walls, representing the soldiers who fought in a battle that is still considered a defining moment in Canadian history.

"It's a part of history we don't normally (hear) about during WWI," he said. "These were actually inscriptions made by soldiers left on a battlefield and they need to be documented.

"The whole intent of the project is to look at the personal side of the (images.) The bottom line is.the soldiers did that work, the guys that gave their lives for Canada."

The Canadigm Team is comprised of artists, technicians and researchers and is currently seeking not-for-profit status, Andrusyszyn said.

Three University of Western Ontario professors sit on its board of directors, including Dr. Graham Wagner, professor of physiology and pharmacology.

It's not his professional work that is attracting him to the project though, but a lifelong fascination with World War I.

"I'm an amateur historian by hobby," Wagner said, explaining that trench maps left behind by his grandfather ¬- a soldier who fought with the Canadian Forces during WWI - have helped him develop a passion for battlefield archeology.

"No one has ever written, at all in any depth whatsoever, about the tunnel systems under Vimy Ridge and what they contributed to the battle," Wagner said. "And I have a feeling they contributed quite a bit."

Wagner explained that the four Canadian divisions at Vimy Ridge occupied three tunnels each and he hopes Andrusyszyn's project will help shed some light onto exactly what Canadians were doing underground prior to the Battle of Vimy Ridge.

"I'm very interested in the trench art of the soldiers but also I hope that it somehow inspires somebody to delve into the role these underground caves and tunnels played in the success of the battle."

Twitter: @YourLondoner

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