One of the enduring stories of Walhachin is that it is widely held to have had the largest per capita enlistment of men in World War I of any community in the British Commonwealth.
It is estimated that the town’s population in 1914 prior to the outbreak of war was about 300. Over the course of the conflict, more than 100 Walhachin men enlisted; by 1916 there were no English orchardists of military age — 18 to 45 years old — left in the community.
There were many towns of a similar population throughout the Commonwealth, so why does Walhachin stand out in terms of the number of men who enlisted?
First of all, it was a relatively new community, established in 1907, which had set out to expressly attract British immigrants of a certain class who fancied the life of a “gentleman farmer”. The vast majority of the orchardists who settled in Walhachin were from the British Isles, and so had no deep connection to the community, or even to Canada.
Many of them were from the middle and upper classes, and had military connections of some kind with regiments back in the Old Country. In 1911 a number of Canadian-born residents formed the Walhachin Company of the 31st British Columbia Horse (now the British Columbia Dragoons). Members took part in regular drills and parades around Walhachin, and attended the annual summer cavalry camp held in Vernon. At the June 1912 Vernon camp, two Walhachin residents — Gordon Flowerdew and Ralph Chetwynd — were singled out for their outstanding performances.
In June 1914 Archduke Franz Ferdinand, the heir to the Austro-Hungarian throne, was assassinated, plunging Europe into chaos and leading to the start of WWI. When Britain declared itself to be at war on Aug. 4, 1914, many of the Walhachin settlers who were affiliated with the military back home left to rejoin their regiments. The 20 members of the Walhachin Company of the 31st British Columbia Horse had been preparing for mobilization since June 1914, and in early August they were ordered to Quebec as part of the First Canadian Expeditionary Force.
By the beginning of September 1914, 43 men — including all but one of the unmarried orchardists — had left Walhachin for active service, leaving only older and married men to continue working the land. Some of the married men also enlisted, often taking their families back to England with them.
The war that many had prophesied would be over by Christmas 1914 dragged on until November 1918, and as more and more men left Walhachin to fight, the decreasing number of people left in the community found it harder and harder to continue the backbreaking and never-ending work needed to maintain the orchards and the 12-mile-long flume that brought water to them. Some of the men who enlisted did return at the end of the war, but many more decided that they had had enough of being gentleman farmers, and opted to either remain in Britain or seek a less difficult life elsewhere.
Another reason so many men might have been eager to join up in 1914 was because the life of an orchardist in an isolated community in western Canada was not to their liking after all. Contemporary records show that many of the orchardists would return to Britain during the winter months, and those of the upper classes tended to look down on the British people in the community who they felt were beneath them in social status. Most of the British emigrants as a whole — no matter what their background — looked down on the non-British residents of the area, and kept themselves somewhat aloof from the neighbouring communities.
Finally, it is difficult to overstate the wave of jingoism in the air when war was declared in 1914. Men who had not been old enough to take part in the second Boer War (1899–1902) were eager to sign up in a new one, and many would have been familiar with the words of the Roman poet Horace: Dulce et decorum est pro patria mori (“It is sweet and proper to die for one’s country”). Entire streets, factories, and businesses saw their young men of fighting age enlist en masse; Walhachin was an example of a whole community where the same thing happened.
A cenotaph commemorating the more than 100 men from Walhachin who enlisted and fought in World War I was unveiled as part of the third annual Walhaschindig on June 16, 2018, with more than 80 people gathering to mark the occasion. Event emcee Barbara Roden, who researched and wrote the wording on the cenotaph, said during her address that “It is fitting that these men are now being honoured with a cenotaph. From coast to coast, in villages, towns, and cities, cenotaphs are places of gathering, commemoration, and remembrance. If any community in Canada deserves a cenotaph, it is Walhachin.
“This cenotaph will stand as a tribute to all of the Walhachin soldiers who served their country: those who are known, and those who remain unknown. We will remember them.”
