Halifax Citadel gets replica WWI trench for hands-on experience

Parks Canada will be offering tours of a replica trench at the Halifax Citadel so people can experience what trenches looked like during World War I.

The First World War Western Front Trench Experience starts July 18, and is part of Poppies in July an event commemorating 100 years since Lt.-Col. John McCrae wrote In Flanders' Fields.

"It's about finding another way to offer a hands-on experience," said Jessica Brown, a spokesperson with Parks Canada. "[Trenches are] kind of a pivotal image of World War I."

The trench, built by Parks Canada and the Halifax Citadel Regimental Association staff, is 21 metres long. It's located above ground between the inner and outer walls in a stretch of the deep trench that surrounds the fort.

Visitors can also see wooden quarters, where the officers would have slept. Through a periscope, they can look at historic images of no man's land and get a sense of where opposing trenches would be.

There are also dugouts to simulate where soldiers would recover from battles, and nursing tents with interpreters to provide an understanding of medicine during the early 1900s.

Visitors to the trench will also be given complimentary packets of Citadel-branded poppy seeds.

"It's a way to create something people can actually get into and feel that connection to history," Brown said.