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Stories of veteran service and sacrifice straight from the people driving today’s most important veterans causes and veterans organizations around the world. The show shines a spotlight on their inspiring projects making a real difference for veterans and their families, and along the way we'll hear the stories that drive them to do their best every day as they work to support veterans and their memory.
Ryan Mullens (00:01)
Okay, welcome to story behind the stone where we talk service sacrifice and stories connecting you to the past and the most interesting people in the field of veteran causes and commemoration. My name is Ryan along with co host Matt and we are with memory anchor, a company committed to using technology for good as we work to change the way the world remembers. So we have on the show today with us.
our friend Nicholas McCarthy and Nick, you're with Beachwood and it's really great to have you on the show. We go way back and I have to say Nick is one of the most interesting people. Every time we get down to Ottawa, he's taking us to his cemetery, showing us many different things between the many different projects he's running. So Nick, welcome to the show.
Nicolas (Nick) McCarthy (00:45)
Well, thanks for having me on today. Really appreciate it. I hope we, I hope I can live up to that introduction. So that will be interesting.
Matthew Cudmore (00:53)
Nick, it's great to see you. would love to, you know, give our listeners a sense of who you are and how you got started in this field, if you could start there.
Nicolas (Nick) McCarthy (01:01)
Well, so for the cemetery industry, I come from a very unique standpoint, right, because I wasn't sort of born into it. I wasn't raised in it. I used to work for I moved from a labor union to the National Cemetery of Canada. So quite a different transition, as you can imagine.
But my background's history and literature. So from a historical literature perspective, I've always been interested in talking about the history. So that's really how I came in. About eight years ago now, I saw this posting when I was working for the labor union, and all of a sudden it's this strange little post about the cemetery in Ottawa that even being from Ottawa, I didn't know about.
And so I came in, I had this crazy interview where it was supposed to be 15 minutes. We talked for an hour and a half. I tore everything apart and I'm like, this is how we rebuild. And then the rest is history. And what's interesting is we're really changing the way that people are looking at cemeteries in Ottawa and really changing the way that people approach dying and death as well. And it's quite, it's quite.
amazing to see how this transition has happened over the course of last seven, eight years.
Ryan Mullens (02:12)
you as you're saying that I know Matt, you and I have spent time in Nick Cemetery and like you, I didn't know what Beachwood was. And I think when I first went there, I was absolutely just taken by just how beautiful it was. And and just, you know, even how the public was engaging with it, because, you know, here in Calgary, we have some cemeteries.
And they're kind of what you think of a classic cemetery, but you on the beach, would you have people running through it on their bikes through it? And yeah.
Nicolas (Nick) McCarthy (02:43)
Yeah, you have
to remember, right? So we end up being where, so just a frame where Beechwood is. Beechwood is about six minutes from Parliament Hill in Ottawa. It's the oldest continuously running cemetery in the city other than our, or the cemetery beside it, which is Notre Dame, which is the Catholic Church cemetery. But so for these 150 plus years, we've always been a place where people have come. There's photos from the 1910s, 1920s.
of people having picnics at the graves, the naturalist society walking through and discovering different plants. One of my favourite sort of stories is we were found in 1873 and by 1874 we were having to issue tickets for people for entry into the cemetery because our gardens were so popular. And a lot of the local newspapers at the time were saying that
If you want to see Canada, go visit Beachwood. If you want to go see incredible displays of flora, fauna, tulips, what have you, it's definitely the place to come. And we get that influx all summer long and even during the winter because we tend to be one of the first places that gets plowed because our crew.
does it over really early in the morning. So even the middle of winter when it's minus 20 outside, you'll still see joggers running through because they know it's clear. But what makes Beechwood so special and so unique is we're so from a military perspective, we're like Arlington Cemetery in the United States. We're a military cemetery. So at any given day, you can see a military service. You can see cannons, flyovers, what have you.
Honor Guards. But then we're also the RCMP cemetery, is a bit for our international office, international community, MI5, FBI, from that perspective. So you have this cemetery that really celebrates, again, 150 years of Canada's police force. And what's more Canadian than a Mountie, right?
Ryan Mullens (04:47)
Hehehe.
Nicolas (Nick) McCarthy (04:47)
And then
we add this other layer where we're the only spy cemetery in the Western world, which is our CESA cemetery, which is really your CIA, your Secret Service, as well as your MI6 and a bit of MI5. There's a bit of overlap, of course. But it's this amazing cemetery with all these different stories that you find out about after the person's passed away. And then you've got a history of auto police. then...
You move away from this defense and securities community and then you walk around and you start to see the history of Canada through different last names, different stories, different ways of immigration. And it's just wild because in some sections you can have a German bow maker beside a physicist who discovered something, beside the woman of Latin American descent who brought in flamingo dancing to Canada. Because of course somebody had to do that at some point.
We take for granted that all this and then just a few feet away from her is the most decorated, one of the most decorated pilots in the history of Canadian aviation, but he's not in the military cemetery. He's just beside in his family plot. So again, it's this.
strange amalgam of different things from hockey players to the people who created the rules to the founders of all these little towns around to mayors to of course to Robert Borden who is probably our most known person to an entire program that looks at addressing residential schools and the impact they had on Canadian society. again, Beachwood, I always say we're unique because I think we are and then from that perspective we're also a historical site.
And what makes it so strange is we're a historical site as an example of American pastoral cemetery, which is again, no straight lines, very fluid hills, but we're also a 1920s Chinese cemetery. So from a post-Victorian perspective to the middle of the 1920s, we have these two opposing design cultures, and it's very, very unique in that sense.
Ryan Mullens (06:48)
Yeah.
as you're talking and definitely, Matt, and you can add to this too, is it is really an experience and we like this concept of like open air museum. You're the history of Canada in a lot of regards. Like you go there. I think you brought us into the mausoleum and I think woods is in there. And, you know, many of us Canadians are using that sporting outdoor product.
right? And he was he wanted to make that accessible for people. And, you know, that's just one person in the mausoleum, not to mention just like, I was just blown away with the stories that we when we first went there, Matt and I hopped on the back of the golf cart with you. And I think we ended up being late or something, because it is so interesting, just the phenomenal amount of information and people that are there. And that's Yeah.
Nicolas (Nick) McCarthy (07:52)
What?
We have the luxury
of having 160 acres, 150 years of history. So it is, it's layer upon layer of story. And then we've always been relatively open. I say relatively because I'm sure I can go back and we've done some things that may not have been community focused, but we've been relatively open and accessible to the public. So again, being the first place that the Chinese community built their cemetery to building sections dedicated to new immigrants and allowing
the Hungarian community build a monument to sort of be a standing tribute to their fight against communism and against the Soviet Union at the time. And they have their own monument to building a French monument much later on. So again, it's all this wonderful amalgam of what it is to be Canadian. And we've noticed that people are coming in and they're reading stories and we have a plaque program all across the cemetery.
these great Canadian plaques and we try to unveil about two, three a year, depending on our foundation budget. But and it's all the it's all these incredible stories of these Canadians that people should know. Like your Lieutenant Colonel Woods, right? You can imagine this guy is part of the military and realizes that he needs to create a sleeping bag, a set of blankets and hard waterproof ish blanket to allow to
to kid up the military. And so he creates this, sells it to the Canadian military, and then the Woods brand is born from there. And then 150, 120 years later, his, I think, two great grandchild runs the Guthrie Woods coins, which most military coins in Canada are made by Guthrie Woods. So it's this full history of one family who's done nothing but serve the military, yes, but also serve
in giving the military the tools they need, give Canadians the tools they need to enjoy our country, and then champion the different aspects of Canadian history with those coins.
Matthew Cudmore (09:58)
Nick, you've got 160 acres. You've mentioned already you have the National Military Cemetery, RCMP, CSIS, which is a section that maybe you think is kind of a hidden corner of Beechwood. And maybe there's a story there that you could share.
Nicolas (Nick) McCarthy (10:15)
a hidden corner of Beechwood. all right, so imagine 160 acres. It's this, there's this wonderful story.
of these two women, these two pioneers, Betty Cole and Rosa Shaw. And this was really the golden age of newspapers, right? And this was the point of society where women weren't seen as newspaper editors, journalists, what have you. And so when you go to our cemetery, it's essentially in one of the sort of the top corner of the cemetery, you have these two small graves.
and they're flat markers. They're the exact same headstone. And so the story goes these women never married. They were together their entire lives. They live together. So the assumption is that they were they were together. They never came out publicly. So I don't want to out them.
But the assumption is that they were a couple, is which would have been very hard for them to navigate that journalism world at that point. We're talking about the 40s, 50s and 60s, right, before the sexual revolution, liberation and all that. So it's a very different society. And so these two women, they become the first journalists in newspapers, the first journalists, women journalists as part of the press corps for parliament. They become some of
first editors of newspapers, the first female editors of newspapers. So they break the glass ceiling at all costs. But as right before one passes, they had a bit of a falling out and they moved. One finally moved out after sort of like 40 years of living together. And she bought a house about five spots down. And when the other one passed away, she was the executor. And the executor bought a lot for her.
built the exact same monument for herself and had five people in between each other. Exactly like how they finished their lives. And it's such an interesting story because these women were pioneers, right? They broke through everything and we would have buried them together at the point they died. It was in 1980s when they passed away. But they still wanted that separation. Like that grudge was still there, which is kind of a tragic in the end, but they'll forever be linked.
Ryan Mullens (12:16)
.
Nicolas (Nick) McCarthy (12:38)
So again, it's all these little gems of stories that you get to sort of find out and you get to share. And then just a few paces away from them in the section in front, there's the first Canadian female journalist, that first person ever, first woman to ever really write in a newspaper as a professional journalist. So again, it's pretty incredible, these stories you get.
Ryan Mullens (12:39)
Hmm.
Yeah, you know, and it really is. And as you walk through, there's tons of different stories. And, you know, I think when you're looking at the history of Canada, Canadian identity, a lot of that is contained within there. I know when we were going, you you're taking us to, I think it was Carrar, General Carrar's grave, and, you know, not too far from the other general. you know, there's just like within a few steps of each other, these very instrumental
than World War II. But then you up the hill and you have our more modern veterans section where my grandfather's even buried. I'm always touched every time Remembrance Day comes along, you're always putting a poppy there for him.
and stuff like that, which is very appreciative. So when it comes to military commemoration, you are a bit of a beacon for Canada when it comes to that. Is there any stories in particular that really stick out from that military commemorative place for you?
Nicolas (Nick) McCarthy (14:08)
I think there's some key moments, right? I'm really proud of what we've been able to develop, right? We have this wonderful relationship with National Defense where during the spring, summer, fall, not during the winter, of course, because we were buried this year with snow, but during the spring, winter, and fall, the military, different detachments, different regiments, different groups within DND come to Beachwood and they do a historical tour, much like I would have given to you guys as well. And it really sort of showcases their history. And what I've noticed is we've been
able to do that more and more. And we've done that with regimental associations. We've done that with the military police, the Padres, the... And we're able to tailor that experience for everyone to make sure that they get something very, very personal and very intimate from it. But when it comes to that magic moment, right?
We do a lot of work with the Dutch and we've, would say our oldest relationship at Beachwood is with the Dutch Embassy of Ottawa. They give us tulips, we plant them in the children's garden. We host a fourth, which is the Dutch Remembrance Day. So.
But what we were able to do one year is we had Princess Marguerite, was again Ottawa's princess, Canada's princess. The reason why we get tulips every year from the Dutch. She was born here. She was one of ours. It's incredible because she had like we have our own princess here in Ottawa. But really wonderful lady. what we did is we were looking for a moment to unveil General Foulkes' plaque, great Canadian plaque. It was one of the plaques that one
I started joined at Beachwood. My General Creare needs one because my grandfather served under him, my uncle served under him, my great uncle excuse me, and then General Foulkes same idea. I very very close bonds to those even if I hadn't known them. And so we had Princess Marguerite born here, General Foulkes signed the liberation documents with her father in Holland that ended occupation.
And we found the living relatives of General Foulkes, his nephew, and he came and he watched as the then Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, the then CDS General Wayne Ayers, and Princess Marguerite unveil this plaque for this man who liberated.
her country. And it's that moment that 70 years or it was 77 plus 75 plus two because of COVID, right? So we were looking at the 75th anniversary plus two.
Matthew Cudmore (16:41)
Ha ha ha.
Nicolas (Nick) McCarthy (16:45)
And so she unveils this plaque and it's this wonderful moment that if this person wasn't willing to take up the mantle, wasn't willing to go through everything he went through, her country may not have been liberated. Canada would not have gone into that period, into Holland perhaps. General Kriar wouldn't have been the general to bring us through. Folks wouldn't have been the one who would have signed the documents. The photographer who took that iconic photo of General Folks and German General Blazkowicz.
is also buried in that section. So it's this incredible moment and almost it's it's you end up thinking back to it and it's very historic because she gets to do this for this man. And in Canada General Foulkes does not have he has one street named after him here in Ottawa and that's pretty much it. In Holland there's bridges there's all kinds of interesting things but
I would add another favourite moment of mine and it's with General Criar and his Remembrance Day. I was waiting to give the then Governor General a tour of, I'm just name dropping, I'm sorry, I don't mean to name drop. It's just, my job is very, very strange sometimes. The brand new Governor General, Mary Simon, I was giving her a tour, but there was this wonderful older woman that was just standing there asking me what I was doing. And I'm like, oh, I'm just waiting to sort of give somebody
Ryan Mullens (17:51)
That's all good.
Nicolas (Nick) McCarthy (18:09)
tour and she's like I have a friend Harry over there he's Barry he was my neighbor I'm like okay so Harry Harry who she's like he's some kind of Canadian general and I saw him like was it Harold Criart and she's like yeah that's the guy and I'm like so how do you know him and she goes on to tell me this incredible story how after the war he walked around the neighborhood
Ryan Mullens (18:20)
Hmm.
Nicolas (Nick) McCarthy (18:31)
after he retired, after he was known as that sort of nice older man who had candy in his pocket. So he would run into the neighborhood kids and he had, and this is before that would have been weird, right? But he would give kids candy. So you have this man who served his entire life, probably saw the worst of the worst.
Ryan Mullens (18:37)
Hmm.
Hmm.
Nicolas (Nick) McCarthy (18:52)
in my opinion left one of the greatest remembrance messages ever in Canadian history, which was his message that he had posted in French, English and Dutch, where our troops were leaving Europe. But then he spent the rest of his life sort of looking at bringing little moments of joy to children. And it breaks down that facade of that incredible general, right, that stoic looking painting, if you will, that we see and we remember.
Ryan Mullens (19:12)
Mm-hmm.
Nicolas (Nick) McCarthy (19:20)
And so that's always that moment, these intimate stories that we get to sort of to be part of.
Ryan Mullens (19:27)
Yeah. Well, and I've gone to his grave a couple of times when I've been there. Matt and I were both there. And I remember you telling that story and, know, those, those anecdotes become so important, right? As it points more to who these individuals were. And, you know, and that's, mean, I think that's a big part of what Matt and I are trying to do with our technology is find ways to preserve or share.
those little anecdotes, like it can't be shared on a plaque or a headstone, but with more context than the technology we can. I'm kind of curious on what your thoughts are because you've always been an early adopter of different ideas and technology. What do you think the future of technology is for commemoration and cemeteries?
Nicolas (Nick) McCarthy (20:21)
Well, I think so with you guys, I think what made Memory Anchor so appealing, it was the ease of use and the idea that you the geolocation, right, that you didn't need to download a QR code reader because at the time we had QR code readers, but it was very much a visual.
Outlook of the cemetery so you can either create custom tours and stuff And I think that's really the future and I think the concept of VML take these cemeteries and bring them into the classrooms And I'll say that nothing beats Having kids at a cemetery right for a Remembrance Day But to get them primed to get them to understand right and you're not gonna bring smaller children to cemeteries but you might take the technology and give them a tour of a monument or give them a tour of a
a memorial or something that we built to honor a battle or a moment in Canadian history. And that way it's accessible, right? We want to make sure that people can come.
and visit regardless of their abilities and regardless of where they are. Not everyone's going to be able to visit Beechwood. I granted I think every Canadian from coast to coast to coast should come through one point, or I hope that's the goal. But I think it's that accessibility piece, right? And learning that, there are people that are like me that are buried in the cemetery.
I think that it's really the simplicity that I enjoyed in the app and how...
you can bring those private moments, right? And you can get as intimate as you want. Like I'm thinking specifically, I feel like I know your grandfather, Ryan, through the pictures you've staged, through the stories you've shared, and through the app itself. it's, course, it brings me coming back to his grave and I make sure that there's always a puppy. If Reece are off Canada, he always gets Reeve, and I always make sure that we've started a cleaning program. So his headstone's been cleaned, I think twice already last year. And I think it's,
Ryan Mullens (21:58)
Mm.
and
Nicolas (Nick) McCarthy (22:20)
that intimate moment, right, that we may not get. There's histories of different people, right? It's sort of the Criar story, right? We can read about what he did as a soldier, but what did he do as a human, right? What are the humanizing factors? What's the story behind the uniform, or in this case, right, what's the story behind the stone? And why are they important? And when we talk about sort of...
Ryan Mullens (22:40)
Mm-hmm.
Nicolas (Nick) McCarthy (22:46)
I look at what we did, what you guys did with Nicola Goddard, right? Who was the first female entropy soldier to be killed in the line of duty. She would have never wanted, Sun Ray was her code name. She was not, she was a soldier first, a woman second. And the fact that she's known as the first. But what you guys have done is you brought her headstone, right?
to the school that's named after in Alberta. And I think that's such a moving moment, right? And I think that allows the kids to sort of really understand the sacrifice that this one individual did on behalf of all of us. And we look at that or when we, you guys did Corporal Cannell, right? That headstone as well, there's a whole story in Corporal Cannell.
for the uninitiated of Beechwood, Corporal Cannell, is the first Canadian soldier or the first Indigenous soldier on Canadian soil or in Canada to ever have an Indigenous symbol and his spirit name on his headstone. And there's really all, if I'm going to segue.
The ability to tell the story of this individual is paramount, not only for reconciliation, but for his family, for healing, for his kids, nieces and nephews to really have a full understanding, but also for the whole military community, as well as I think any Canadian that truly believes in reconciliation. A little background on Corporal Cannell. Corporal Cannell sadly passed away of moral injury.
And from that standpoint, his family really, as he was going through life, he was rediscovering his Indigenous background, his First Nations background. And he wasn't able to sort of complete what he needed to complete to fully, to fully embrace his culture, even though he was really doing that. At his military service, at his burial, had his nieces did a jingle dance, which was very, very moving. As instead of a final prayer, they added. So there's one layer of the first time in
indigenous tradition or First Nations spiritual tradition comes into Canadian military. And then we, wanted, the family wanted a First Nations symbol. We did not have one at the time. So it allowed us to not only challenge ourselves, challenge the Canadian military since we're part of them, but also go out and reach out to the broader indigenous community and say, we need representation. We need you to...
tell us what you want and what symbol is appropriate and how can we work with you and how can we open space and give space to reveal a symbol that would be meaningful. Of course for the First Nations it was relatively a simple task because the medicine wheel is such an important symbol as well as the medicine wheel with feathers on it. So again this allowed us to open up this moment.
But then we look at Corporal Connell, was also, his family received his spirit name after he passed away. They had a spirit naming ceremony and an elder in their community revealed a spirit name. So again, military being very prescribed, was this, did we get, how can we get a spirit name on the headstone? And so we went back and forth.
And because it's a word of an Indigenous elder, it has the same value as any court document, any legal document. So we actually ended up being able to put. So for the first time in the history of Canada, or the history since first contact, or since Europeans came to North America, an Indigenous soldier had his spirit name on his headstone with his
his, I'll say his government name, and an Indigenous symbol, and now he's often, he's one of the most visited headstones at Beechwood. And so it's this wonderful story that we're able to sort of share and really sort of lift up these stories. And although his life was short, the impact that he has, that moment that he decided that he needed to affirm who he was changed the course of military history.
Ryan Mullens (26:37)
Hmm.
Nicolas (Nick) McCarthy (26:57)
And had a wonderful unveiling and of course we unveiled the Metis symbol and we're working to unveil the symbol for the Inuit people, which is a little bit longer process as you would imagine. But again,
It's all these moments that you get to share in that make us so unique, but it makes everything personal and having that captured in a way to communicate with the public that I don't have to be there to share the story or the family doesn't have to be there to share the story. It really allows people to sort of have their memory live on forever and understand their impact. So that's where technology, I think, meet.
Matthew Cudmore (27:36)
really live this mission among all among your many missions, preserving military memories. You're also working with other communities as well, Lebanese Canadians and the Canadian forces, Latin Canadians and the Canadian forces. Can you share a little bit more about those initiatives and maybe some others?
Nicolas (Nick) McCarthy (27:54)
Okay, so when it comes to that, a couple years ago, I had a Latin American community reach out to me and they're like, I want to build a stone. I want to build a monument to these Latin Americans. And it was my buddy, he becomes a friend, Captain Ray Garcia Salas. He has this incredible story about these Latin American soldiers who paid their own way to come to Canada during World War I and World War II.
And they had no, as you say, skin in the game. Their countries weren't at war. They didn't declare war. Some of them were even sympathetic to the different causes that you would have, that we were not sympathetic towards. But they had this sense of a greater aspect, then a greater moment that they, there was a greater calling. And so the Canadian government never recognized them. These would have been Spanish, primarily Spanish speaking Canadians. And the reason the Canadian government never
acknowledge them is because they were mixed in different units. So it's not like when we have the Irish regiments or the Indian regiments or the Loupetis from Newfoundland. So we don't, they never formed a full regiment or full battalion. So they were mixed in flying and sailors and artillerymen and infantry troops and
Merchant Marines. And so for the first time in Canadian history, we were able to sort of bring their names out, share their names, and really hold a ceremony to honor them. And October is Latin American, Latin American History Month here in Canada. So the second Tuesday of every October, we hold this wonderful ceremony where we raise a co-host country's flag. So we've co-hosted with Argentina, Mexico. This year, it's Guatemala.
We've worked with Peru and we're able to have these wonderful ceremonies where we welcome the community. They realize that they're not, and this is my favorite part, right? When people realize that there's no such thing as a new immigrant, because there's no such thing, because Canada has always been open, right? And to have an understanding that somebody who just came to Canada from a Latin American country have somebody who served in the Canadian military in World War I.
there's something incredible and even the ambassadors have been very receptive to the fact that their people are here and we, every ambassador speaks at the event, every co-host ambassador, because there's 26 embassies that we're dealing with. it's a 26 year, every 26 years they have a commitment and they've been very receptive, but what it has allowed us to do, it brings this community
move it moves this community forward towards remembrance as well and has them understand and share in the sacrifice that we all have when they themselves did not necessarily feel it they could do it.
And so the Latin American Heritage Committee or Latin American Soldiers Committee, it's the most developed committee that I help form. And we have two events a year, Pan Am Day, which is essentially us telling the community what we're doing, what we're looking to, if there's a new petition. This year, I'm launching a study guide so that we can send it to schools, very visual.
a very personal study guide with narratives and stories. And then we're looking at holding our ceremony again, and we're looking at also holding a more modern ceremony for the Afghan vets because again, 1.5 % of our military now is Latin American. And you can imagine that a lot of them served in Afghanistan. So we're looking to hold a vigil as well. And we're hoping to have a multi country vigil.
So these are all different moments, but the whole idea is that we can have these separate moments. We can have our Latin American Remembrance Day. We can have our Ukrainian Remembrance Day. We can have our Dutch Remembrance Day. But on November 11th, we're all together shoulder to shoulder. And that's where you've primed these different communities. You've had the moment where you can share and you can reflect on the sacrifice. And then you join in on that full day of reflection. And I think that's where the more meaningful moment is.
Ryan Mullens (32:15)
know, you can see how Beachwood facilitates that. And you can see those connections as we've gone there, you've taken us to these different graves of these different individuals, you know, whether they're Dutch.
Nicolas (Nick) McCarthy (32:28)
Yeah.
Ryan Mullens (32:29)
South, South American
Kiwis. And it's, like, we could probably talk, we could do several, several shows. could do a whole podcast actually on all the individuals and the different stories in there. And I think that's really the thing to capture. so any listeners who are from Canada or visiting and happen to be in the Ottawa area, you have to take time to get down to. Beachwood because it really does represent.
Matthew Cudmore (32:39)
you
Ryan Mullens (32:58)
a cultural significance to Canada and our history. As we're about to wrap here, Nick, is there any other stories or anything in particular that you want to put light to before we ask you on what's next? What's the projects coming?
Nicolas (Nick) McCarthy (33:15)
The problem is we could talk for hours, right? And I'm willing to come back and just talk about one small section because I think that might be the easier route to do. again, for those listening, there's an initiative called No Stone Left Alone started very organically grassroots in Edmonton with a
Ryan Mullens (33:18)
Yeah.
Matthew Cudmore (33:19)
You
Ryan Mullens (33:25)
We should do it.
Nicolas (Nick) McCarthy (33:41)
a mother asking her daughter never to forget her, right? And always plays a poppy at her grave because her mother was a vet. And from that she became again, everyone becomes a good friend, Maureen becomes this really wonderful, Maureen Purvis starts this organization called No Stone Left Alone where they look.
to encourage school children and schools to bring kids to military cemeteries, regimental cemeteries, or your neighbor's cemeteries, and hold a ceremony to call out the names of these individual soldiers who've sacrificed so much, whose families also sacrificed so much, and by placing a poppy so that by Remembrance Day, every single Canadian and allied force in Canada who's buried on Canadian soil, and now international soil as well, because they've expanded.
has a Canadian poppy on their headstone. And it's such a touching moment. So we do it twice at Beachwood a year, because we do have about 10,000 military headstones at Beachwood within the National Military Cemetery. And so we do one with school children, and then we do one with Girl Guiders on the Saturday before Remembrance Day. And it allows these two different communities, schools and...
and Girl Guiders to understand their role within the military, their role within remembrance, and also what they've sacrificed. With the no stone left alone with school children, sometimes they'll recognize the crests on the headstones and remember that, it was that Canadian soldier that was in my community when they were on a peacekeeping mission or in Bosnia or Rwanda or...
in Haiti. So again, it really, you see these kids recognize things and recognize how safe Canada is as a country and how safe and how important our military is. And we can go through story after story of how important the Canadian military is, but I think we don't understand the impact that our military has around the world.
in the missions that they've served, either through NATO, either through humanitarian assistance, either through peacekeeping missions, either through training missions like Operation Unifier in Ukraine. Again, the Canadian military, we
There's a lot of news about them, but the great work that they've done outside the world for world peace and the benefit of all of us Canadians, but then also the work that they've done inside from the ice storm in Toronto, which Toronto always gets a lot of flack for that one, right? the helping out with the ice storm to the COVID operations to the Red River.
floods that happened in Winnipeg all across to the forest fires all across our country, right? You have people who are choosing to serve and there's no bigger To me, there's no bigger sacrifice than choosing to serve because you're giving away Your ability to choose what you're doing on a day in day out Ryan. You would know that
Ryan Mullens (36:33)
Yeah.
Nicolas (Nick) McCarthy (36:50)
And then the sacrifice of these soldiers' families as well, right? And I always say, Remembrance Day, you have to remember the soldiers, you have to remember everyone. But you also have to remember that for every soldier who's out doing something on behalf of Canadian, there's a family that's losing Christmas, there's a family that's losing birthdays, there's a family that's hoping to God that they don't get that call, that they get the call that, I'm coming home, right? So that's where I think programs like No Stone Left Alone
Ryan Mullens (37:17)
Hmm.
Nicolas (Nick) McCarthy (37:20)
are so poignant.
Matthew Cudmore (37:21)
Yeah, they're great organization, Nick, big supporters from the side of the camera. I wanted to also touch on, you know, initiative you mentioned previously, which was under the maple
Nicolas (Nick) McCarthy (37:24)
Thanks.
so we're launching this program called Under the Maple Leaf, respecting or honoring the Canadian flag. And as somebody who's flown a flag, as people, as a cemetery that has 11 flagpoles, everyone ends up having ripped, tattered or faded Canadian flags. And you either end up, you don't throw them out because no Canadian ever really does that. No Canadian wants to put them on
a campfire even though that's the proper way to do it. So you end up collecting these flags and in our one of our offices we do have several used Canadian flags properly folded up. So the intent of the under the maple leaf is to encourage Canadians from coast to coast to coast to send their Canadian flags to Beechwood. And what we will do is we will place them, we will fold them up, place them in a Canadian made casket.
and then cremate them accordingly, right? So we have the facilities to be able to do that in a respectful way. Nobody will be there when we cremate it. But before that, we're going to have a ceremony where we're going to raise a brand new Canadian flag in the National Military Cemetery and we'll alternate every year. So one year it'll be in the National Military Cemetery, next year it'll be in the RCMP Cemetery, CESA Cemetery, Auto Police, and we'll alternate every four years. And the whole goal is that we're going to sing out Canada and then we're going to see Canadian troops
either RCMP members, Canadian soldiers, CSIS members, whomever, raise a Canadian casket and walk it away to Maple Leaf Forever, right? And it's a nighttime ceremony where we're just teaching people that we should be flying our flags properly, we should be flying our flags high, but we should also properly dispose of them in a intentful way.
And we don't want people to just throw them in the dump. We don't want people to just throw them on their campfires, as I said. And people don't need to collect them in their garages, in their cottages, in their offices.
and we can provide a way and I think as the National Cemetery of Canada, I think it really is important for us to provide this service to Canadians. We're working with Heritage Canada, we're working with BMO Bank here in Ottawa, it's going to be a collection point. We're still talking with the RCMP. I'm hoping to get the NHL on board, have a maple leaf cup for Pride and who can collect the most flags. So again, we're having all these wonderful conversations with all these different groups
Ryan Mullens (40:03)
Mm.
Nicolas (Nick) McCarthy (40:05)
groups. And they understand in the minute I'm like, well, we want to respect the flag, we want to do it properly, we want to be able to do our part to make sure that the symbol that means so much to every Canadian and means so much around the world as I was alluding to about the role of our military and our police forces as well, but to properly give them a proper disposition. And I think it
It's a natural fit. We can see Parliament from Beechwood. We have some of the people who helped design the flag. We have some of the people who helped write parts of the Canadian Anthem. So again, we have people sign the document that created Canada and created some of our provinces. We have premiers from every province buried at Beechwood as well. So again, why wouldn't we be the place to provide this service? And it's just yet again, how can we
make sure that Canadians feel comfortable with their national cemetery, but that their national cemetery brings them a moment of pride, right? And it doesn't matter if your pride is in the military, if your pride's in the RCMP, if your pride's in the intelligence role that we've played through all the conflicts. It doesn't matter if your pride is in Canadian literature because we have that too. It doesn't matter really where if you're...
a fan of justice. have full Supreme Court tours about the role of the Supreme Court justices here. But again, it's just about providing that service. And under the Maple Leaf, hopefully you guys will hear it all across Canada. I'm hoping it gets picked up.
And it becomes this project where every year Canadians are coming and they're just they're properly learning how to fold a flag first of all, because most Canadians think we have to fold our flags like the Americans with the 13 folds in a triangle, which we don't do in Canada.
Again, so it gives us this opportunity to not only teach Canadians when to fly a flag, how to fly it properly, and then when it's time to bring it down. So I'm hoping people will join. I know you guys are going to push it out anyway with any collateral that I'll do.
And it's kind of a favor I'm asking for Canada. Let's make sure that we fly our flag high, we fly it right, and that if the flag doesn't look right, fold it up, put an envelope, tell me where you're from, and send it to me. And we'll take care of it. We'll make sure that you know that it's going to be taken care of. And I think that's the story of Beechwood, right? It's how...
for 150 years we've been a caretaker of Canada, we've been a caretaker of our history, our identity, our military identity, our military history, our RCMP history. We've been that place that has been that constant. The city grew, our national capital grew, but Beechwood remains this constant from 1873 to now. We've been this place where people have been invited to come visit, people have been invited to come and discover their heritage, discover their communities, and then maybe leave with
maybe one or two things that they didn't know about Canada or even know about themselves. So there's my plug. Let's hope that we can encourage more Canadians to come.
Ryan Mullens (43:16)
Haha.
Well, Nick, no, that's great. so to all our listeners, thank you so much for tuning in today. Make sure if you are in the Ottawa area, you do take time to see Beachwood because it is a really historical, important place to check out. Nick, thank you so much for joining us and just sharing. Again, there's a wealth of stories there. And like you said, we could probably do a podcast on each section and we're going to have to have you come back and tell us a little bit more about some of those sections in the future.
For you listeners, please make sure to check out our socials on LinkedIn and Instagram and Facebook. And if you like this episode, tune in again next week