Names on a Cenotaph: Kootenay Lake Men in World War 1, Sylvia Crooks. Published by Granville Island Publishing, Vancouver, 2014. Glossy card covers. 8vo up to 9½” tall., 249 pp. with notes, index, bibliography, maps and photos. In fine, unread condition with very light outside edge dusting..
On cenotaphs and memorials along the shores of beautiful Kootenay Lake in the BC Interior are the names of 280 men who died on the blood-soaked battlefields of World War I amid the first deadly gas attack at Ypres, in the costly battle for Vimy Ridge and through the horrors of Passchendaele. Many of the men were fruit ranchers, mostly British immigrants who settled on the shores of the lake, along the Kootenay River, and in the Slocan Valley. They were miners, labourers, businessmen and some were students about to embark on promising careers. They come alive again in this account of who they were and what they endured in that futile and cataclysmic war to end all wars. After six years of research, the author tells their stories, and vividly makes them more than simply names on a cenotaph.
