This hand-drawn map indicates some of the hundreds of trenches that crisscrossed Vimy Ridge. These trenches lay in the 4th Division's sector, on the left (north) of the Canadian lines. Although the trenches would have had German names (since they built them), the Canadians have renamed the trenches under an easy-to-remember system where they all begin with "B." Other sectors would have had trenches identified beginning with different letters. These hand-drawn maps, although crude, were important for soldiers to situate themselves in the chaos of battle, and often as they advanced through the underground trenches, and therefore without the benefit of a birds-eye view of the battlefield.
George Metcalf Archival Collection
CWM 19810903-001
Canada and the First World War
