ABSTRACT
This chapter examines the participation of Canadian Armed Forces members in the Nijmegen March, a four-day event occurring each July in the Netherlands. Although the Nijmegen event is generally seen as a secular celebration, i.e. an endurance athletic event for civil and military participants, it can also be considered as a military pilgrimage because of the way in which it is structured and framed. By transporting them to hallowed battlefields and military cemeteries, the Canadian military encourages the young personnel selected for the march to read themselves into an ongoing narrative of national pride and service. The sheer physicality of marching 40 kilometers a day for four days allows the marchers to embrace the military ethos of shared hardship and camaraderie and to vicariously identify with the honoured war dead who have made far greater sacrifices. Drawing on interviews with five participants in the 2014 Nijmegen March and scholarship on war grave pilgrimage, the chapter argues that the Nijmegen March is a pilgrimage since it is a transformative experience that connects young soldiers with sacred places and persons from Canada’s past.
