Legion branches plan Remembrance Day services in Nunavut

Updated on Monday, Nov. 14 at 3:15 p.m.

Nunavut’s two Royal Canadian Legion branches will host services to commemorate Remembrance Day on Friday.

In Iqaluit, branch 168 will host an indoor service in the Cadet Hall at 946 Mivvik St. beginning at 10:30 a.m. The service is open to everyone to attend.

Last year, Remembrance Day services in Iqaluit were held outdoors at the site of the cenotaph.

Following the service, a reception will be held at the Iqaluit legion branch. Due to limited seating, only invited dignitaries and card-carrying members of the legion will be permitted to attend that reception.

In Rankin Inlet, branch 169 will host its Remembrance Day service at the Rankin Inlet Community Centre. Doors will open at 10:30 a.m., with services expected to start at 10:45 a.m.

Members of the Rankin Inlet community are welcome to attend and dignitaries have been invited to lay wreaths on behalf of their organizations and constituents.

In Ottawa, Gov. Gen. Mary Simon — who through her office is also Commander in Chief of the Canadian Armed Forces — will attend National Remembrance Day services at the National War Memorial again this year.

She will be joined by this year’s National Silver Cross Mother, Candy Greff of Lacombe, Alta., who will lay a wreath on behalf of Canadian mothers who have lost a child in service to Canada.

Greff’s son, Byron Greff, a master corporal with the 3^rd Battalion of Princess Patricia’s Canadian Light Infantry, died in a suicide-bomb attack while on a training mission in Afghanistan in 2011.

Greff was the last of 158 Canadian soldiers to die in the war in Afghanistan. Canada’s mission there ended in 2014.

Correction: This article has been corrected to note that the Remembrance Day service at Cadet Hall was in fact open to the public, though the event at the Royal Canadian Legion branch 168 hall was restricted. Nunatsiaq News regrets the error.