ROTHENBURGER – How one man helped build a nation at Vimy Ridge
Pvt. George McLean.
TOMORROW (April 9, 2017), I’m going down to Merritt to emcee an event honoring a man I’ve admired much of my life, though I never knew him.
He was the son of a brother of my great-grandfather. I know, family histories can be complicated.
Since Sunday is the 100th anniversary of the Battle of Vimy Ridge, it seemed like a good time to pay our respects to George McLean, who won the Distinguished Conduct Medal for gallantry at Vimy.
The ceremony for Pvt. George McLean will be held at 11:30 a.m. on Sunday, April 9 at 1675 Tutill Court in Merritt. It will include a plaque unveiling in honour of Pvt. McLean in the Nicola Valley Museum and Archives. A Vimy Ridge Day ceremony will also be held in Kamloops on Sunday, 1 p.m. at the Battle Street Cenotaph. The Kamloops Legion is co-ordinating. At the closing of the ceremony, the City will turn on the Cenotaph clocks.
For more on George McLean, read my articles Looking For Pvt. George McLean Part 1 and Part 2, originally published in 2014.
ArmchairMayor.ca 
This is funny:
“The McLeans who traded furs for the Hudson’s Bay Company, and the indigenous people they found already living here, spent quite a lot of time shooting at each other.
“Thankfully, that didn’t stop them from marrying (each other as well)…”
-Like saying: “Ok, in early spring we’ll get some shootin’ done, yet by Easter…well there’s a barn dance down in the valley, so we’ll have to wait till fall again, because cousin Ed is marryin’ that girl from down the way and it wouldn’t be a fittin’ if were shootin’ up the entire country-side, but ‘dang-it-all’ those pesky neighbours are a bit of trial on my nerves…! ‘May the hostilities continue -on the appropriate days, that is.’ Plus, our next meeting together is just before the August harvest, when they’ll be new bullets at the hardware store to be gettin’.”
-Did you know that the old timer Mexicans used to fire bullets straight up the air along their parade route and occasionally one of those stray projectiles would come straight back down and ‘clobber’ one of the festival attendants -mere participants whom were simply hootin’ and hollerin’ along the parade route.
Thankfully, fireworks have limited much of the festival carnage in present days parade participation.
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