Danger

Danger is everywhere on the Vimy memorial site. An estimated 30-40% of munitions used during the First World War did not explode. Despite the fact that demining teams have swept most areas of the memorial site at least 4-5 times, unexploded munitions are continually coming to the surface. These red signs can be found all over telling people to keep off the grass and not wander off into the forrested areas. Farmers tilling their fields in this area regularly pull up unexploded shells. It's a fact of life around here. All they do is pile them in the ditch and demining teams come around every few weeks and pick them up.

Honestly, the signs and whatnot are more for insurance purposes than anything these days. Walking around in the woods here and happening upon an unexploded shell probably isn't all that dangerous. It's when people start to tamper with them that things turn ugly. About 20 people a year still die as a result of the First World War; most of these are cases of local people (often times kids) who find shells, take them home, and start to tinker.

Along with munitions coming up to the surface, sometimes corpses do too. Last year, when re-doing a parking-lot on site they found the corpse of a German soldier. The site director, while having a look at it, happened to touch one of the buttons on this soldier's uniform. A little while later, the director's finger started to burn, and some of the skin was eaten away. They think that there may have been traces of mustard gas on this corpse. Apparently mustard gas can stick around for quite some time.