On July 21, historian Ted Barris will return to the Stephen Leacock Festival for a talk about the famous Battle at Vimy Ridge; the centennial was observed in 2017. Drawing content and visuals from his bestselling book Victory At Vimy, Ted will walk his audience through events of that famous Easter Monday morning – April 9, 1917. Fighting for the first time as a national army, that day, Canadian troops swarmed up that strategic ridge in north-central France and in a matter of hours accomplished what no Allied army had, in nearly three years of blood-letting in Europe. They seized Vimy from an entrenched German army. Indeed, Ted Barris makes the case that those young citizen soldiers gave birth to a nation – Canada.

Ted joins Dr. Alan Bowker at the Festival; Dr. Bowker will speak about the kind of Canada that members of the Canadian Expeditionary Force returned to in 1918. For his talk, Dr. Bowker will draw on stories from his book A Time Such as There Never Was Before. 

Ted Barris is an author, journalist and broadcaster, making appearances on CBC Radio and regular contributions to the National Post and Legion, Air Force and Zoomer magazines, he gives talks/presentations across the country. He has authored 18 published, non-fiction books.

In 2011 he received the Canadian Minister of Veterans’ Affairs Commendation and in 2012 the Queen Elizabeth II Diamond Jubilee Medal. His book The Great Escape: A Canadian Story received the 2014 Libris Best Non-Fiction Award.