Passendale Canadian Monument 

Crest Farm and Canadian Memorial

The monument commemorates the Third Battle of Ypres, in which Passchendaele was captured from the Germans after 100 days and great losses. In the final phase, the Australian and New Zealand troops were relieved by Canadian troops. These reached the hills southwest of Passchendaele (Goldberg and Crest Farm) on October 30. Passchendaele could be reached from there: a gain of several hundred meters at the expense of 15,000 to 16,000 Canadians killed in action.

 

Crest Farm, located on an elevation, was finally taken by the Canadians on November 30. The village, or what was left of it, had to be handed over to the Germans again in the spring of 1918.

The current memorial stands on the site where Crest Farm once stood. It was founded after 1923. At first they wanted to copy the statue "The Brooding Soldier" (in Sint-Juliaan) in six places, but they decided against that in order to preserve the impressive statue.

 

In November 2017, an art installation named the Canada Gate was unveiled close to the Passchendaele Canadian Memorial. It is a companion piece to The Last Steps Memorial Arch in Halifax, Canada, linking the last steps of Canadian soldiers who left Halifax with the last steps taken on that First World War battlefield.