Over the past few years, Regina’s Chris Harris has been travelling to Europe to document the final resting places of Saskatchewan soldiers killed in battle.
Harris originally created the Saskatchewan Remembrance Project in 2016 to document the 65 resting places of the Saskatchewan soldiers killed in the D-Day invasion. He is in Normandy for the 75th anniversary on Thursday.
Harris has visited multiple gravesites to take photos of the tombstones. While in Italy in August 2017, he travelled to three cemeteries and took 108 photos of tombstones. Twelve Saskatchewan soldiers are buried at Cesena, 23 at Ravenna, nine at Villanova and three at Argenta Gap.
In June of that year, Harris travelled to Arcona and Montecchio. Eleven Saskatchewan-born soldiers are buried in Arcona while 19 are buried in Montecchio.
Harris has taken the photos and placed them in a mock cemetery outside the Saskatchewan legislative building and the cenotaph in Victoria Park for people to visit and possibly see the graves of their relatives for the first time.
Chris Harris visited cemeteries in Italy back in 2017. (Saskatchewan Remembrance Project/Facebook)
Chris Harris visited cemeteries in Italy back in 2017. (Saskatchewan Remembrance Project/Facebook)
Chris Harris visited cemeteries in Italy back in 2017. (Saskatchewan Remembrance Project/Facebook)