A UNIQUE CEREMONY

Evening Star, Issue 19773, 25 January 1928, Page 8

A UNIQUE CEREMONY

WHAT SIR ALAN COBHAffI SAYS LOVELY CENOTAPH VISITED. Perhaps the most unique of Armistice Day celebrations was that which took place at the abandoned town of Phoenix, in the Selkirks, close to the international boundary. AVhen the war broke out, Phoenix, a very rich copper mine, had passed its peak, hut many of the remaining young men shouldered the Empire's burden. At the end of the war an imposing Cenotaph was erected on a rocky eminence overlooking the camp, and on it were inscribed the names of those who went overseas. Nowadays the only occupant of Phoenix is a white-haired janitor, whose business is to look after the remaining nine buildings, pending their demolition. But Phoenix was not forgotten on Armistice Day. A pilgrimage was made to the Cenotaph from the neighboring town of Grand Forks, headed by the Mayor, About a bundled people climbed the mountain side, and grouped themselves round the Cenotaph for two minutes of silence, and the Last Post, in honor of the community which had mined a, hundred million tons of ore, and, in its declining but still cheerful days, had sent its last men to fight in the Kootenay Battalion of British Columbia.