The association of the poppy with remembrance has been around for at least 110 years prior to being adopted in Canada . There are records during the Napoleonic Wars, which mention how quickly poppies grew over the graves of soldiers in the area of Flanders, France.

The person who was responsible more than any other for the adoption of the poppy in Canada was Lt-Col John McCrae .
John McCrae is the author of the famed poem “In Flanders Fields” and was written during the First World War.

John was born in 1872 and raised in Guelph , Ontario . He was more than a poet; he was a doctor, a soldier, an author and an artist.

At the early age of 15, John McCrae joined the Highland Cadet Corps and became a bugler in the local militia regiment of artillery commanded by his father. John later joined as a gunner.

John McCrae graduated at the top of his class in medicine at the University of Toronto and in 1899, was awarded a fellowship in pathology to McGill University in Montreal . He unfortunately had to leave university to go to South Africa with the artillery (Boer War 1899-1902).

In 1914, McCrae again offered his services to the military. He was conditionally offered the position of Brigade Surgeon in the First Brigade of Canadian Field Artillery. He was made responsible for a field dressing station at the front and treated those wounded during the Second Battle of Ypres in the spring of 1915. When he was needed, he also served on the guns and occasionally performed burial services.

After performing the service for a friend, Alexis Helmer, McCrae was inspired to write “In Flanders Fields”. The poem was written May 3, 1915.

In 1918, while working at the Number 3 Canadian General Hospital in France , McCrae became ill with pneumonia. Pneumonia soon became complicated by meningitis. Four days before he died, he was honoured by being the first Canadian appointed as consulting physician to the first British Army.

John McCrae died on January 28, 1918 and was buried with military honours at Wimereaux Cemetery in France .

At McCrae's funeral procession, 75 nursing sisters stood by to watch and McCrae's horse, Bonfire, wore his master's boots backwards in military tradition.





In Flanders fields the poppies blow
Between the crosses, row on row
That mark our place; and in the sky
The larks, still bravely singing, fly
Scarce heard amid the guns below.


We are the Dead. Short days ago
We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,
Loved and were loved, and now we lie
In Flanders fields.


Take up our quarrel with the foe:
To you from failing hands we throw
The torch; be yours to hold it high.
If ye break faith with us who die
We shall not sleep, though poppies grow
In Flanders fields.