Thousands of handmade poppies adorn Niagara-on-the-Lake in tribute to veterans

A group of volunteers has been preparing for Remembrance Day this month, and for the past eight weeks they have been busy putting up several poppy installations around the historic town of Niagara-on-the-Lake.

Since they first started, the Poppy Brigade has handmade thousands of poppy flowers.

Barbara Worthy and her group of women volunteers have worked hard to make thousands of poppy flowers, hundreds of them now tied onto a net cascading from the bell tower of the Niagara-on-the-Lake Museum.

“We decided with all our ladies or volunteers — we said, why don’t we do our own Poppy Project; and we’ve tried to do something entirely different,” said Worthy.

Calling themselves the Poppy Brigade, they started crocheting and knitting poppy flowers in 2021 to add to the 1,800 poppy flowers that were donated to them by the Niagara Falls History Museum after an art installation project in 2020.

They decided to do something different.

“We’d let the poppies pour out like a river of blood in remembrance,” said Worthy.

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A flow of poppies that Worthy says is a metaphorical reminder of loss but also of joy of what community is all about.

“When people put their hands together and they work on this, they feel like they’re really contributing in a way that there’s no other way that you can do it to make it so heartfelt,” said Worthy.

The group’s touching tribute became part of the annual Remembrance Day installation outside the museum.

“We also devised this idea of — why can’t we also say the names of the soldiers that we know who were from here, so we made a veteran’s garden. And with fabric poppies, we’re honouring the names,” said Worthy.

This year, they also made poppy wreaths that are distributed to local businesses throughout the Heritage District. Each wreath, a labour of love and remembrance.

“My dad was a vet and it means a lot to me to have the veterans recognized. We’ve got so few of them now, they’re all unfortunately passing away,” said Janet Guy, a member of the Poppy Brigade planning committee.

There are many poppy installations around Niagara-on-the-Lake, and one that displays a net of poppies all made by the volunteers — it sets a perfect backdrop to the cenotaph on Queenston.

Elsewhere in the town, you can see more nets of poppies — like one draped over the Royal Canadian Legion Branch 124 on King Street and over at the Niagara District Courthouse on Queen Street.

“I thought it was so beautiful and just in time for Remembrance Day, it’s a very important day for us all,” said Erlisa Cakeo, visiting Niagara-on-the-Lake.

People walking past the courthouse stopped by to admire the striking red flowers. Some walked over to veteran Stan Harrington who was standing next to the installation.

“Everybody is so generous, and a lot of people are aware of them because they realize it’s just to remember the veterans and the people that served,” said Harrington.

“When you look at the poppies you see the heart that has gone into it, you know you’ve done something special,” said Worthy.

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