Manitoba Provincial Heritage Site
 

The Camp Hughes Provincial Heritage Site is situated south of the Trans-Canada highway, 132 km West of Winnipeg, near Provincial Road 351. Access to the cemetery and memorial plaque is via a gravel road leading south from PR 351. A "Camp Hughes Cemetery" sign points the way.
 

Lines of the 107th Battalion, 1916. One  of many similar sites at Camp Hughes

The site consists of rolling open ground, broken by small copses of trees. The main remains of the military camp are, the cemetery, the trench system, the central camp area with some building remains and road surfaces and several battalion camp sites.

History

The need for a central training camp in Military District 10 (Manitoba and NW Ontario) resulted in the establishment of Sewell Camp in 1910, on Crown and Hudson's Bay  Company land near Carberry, Manitoba. The site was accessible by both the Canadian Northern and Canadian Pacific Railways and the ground was deemed suitable for the training of artillery, cavalry, and infantry units.

The first summer training camp, in 1910, was attended by 1,469 soldiers. Militia soldiers continued to train in the summers up until the final pre-war  camp in July 1914.

After the formation of the Canadian Expeditionary Force (C.E.F.) in  1914, the camp was expanded to train the large numbers of new recruits. 10,994 men of all  ranks attended camp in 1915. Permanent buildings were constructed, a rifle range with 500 targets was set up, and the water supply was improved.

In September, 1915 Camp Sewell was renamed Camp Hughes, in honour of  Canada's Minister of Militia and Defence, Major General Sam Hughes.
 

In 1916, the camp trained 27,754 troops, making it the largest community in Manitoba outside of Winnipeg. Construction  reached its zenith, and the camp boasted six movie theatres, numerous retail stores, a  hospital, a large heated in-ground swimming pool, Ordnance and Service Corps buildings,  photo studios, a post office, a prison and many other structures. The troops were  accommodated in neat groups of white bell tents, located around
the central camp.

A view of the six movie theatres in the  central camp area, 1916.
Only the concrete mounts for the electric generators remain.

The Trenches

The Camp Hughes trench system was developed in 1916 to teach trainee soldiers the lessons of trench warfare which had been learned through great sacrifice on the battlefields of France and Flanders. Veterans were brought back to Canada to instruct in  the latest techniques. The trenches accurately replicated the scale and living arrangements for a battalion of 1000 men.

The battalion in training would enter the system, after first being  issued their food, ammunition and extra equipment, through two long communication trenches  which led up to a line of support and front-line trenches. All along the route dugouts with thick earth overhead cover housed the troops and protected them from artillery fire.

Once established, the battalion would undergo training in daily  routine, sentries, listening posts, trench clearing, and finally, a frontal assault on the "enemy" by going over the top and across no-man's-land into the enemy line of trenches.

A view of a main trench. The walls are strengthened  with brushwood revetting
and the forward edge with sandbags.

The shallow "enemy" trenches are built on higher ground as were  most of the German positions on the Western Front in Europe.

An additional trench system served as a  "grenade school". Here troops would practice working their way down an enemy  occupied trench and finally throw live grenades from the trench into pits dug near the end.

Though much eroded after 80 years, the trench system is  still essentially intact and is the only First World War training trench system extant in North America.

A decline in voluntary enlistments (culminating in the Conscription Act) caused the suspension of  training in 1917 and 1918.

A view of part of the trench system in 1916. In the centre is a
sandbagged dugout with overhead cover.

The camp was re-opened after the war for summer training of the Militia. Throughout the 1920's the Militia continued to use the  camp for annual training. In 1933 the camp was dismantled and much of the material,  including some of the buildings, were moved to nearby Camp Shilo. The area lay untouched, occasionally used for training in the Second World War.
 

The Military History Society of Manitoba has worked on the site since 1988 under the aegis of the Provincial Archaeologist and has gathered a large quantity of artifacts, photographic and archival material.

Because of the importance of the Camp Hughes site to the awareness  and understanding of Manitoba's role in the First World War, it was designated as a  Provincial Heritage Site in 1993. A commemorative plaque was set up on Cemetery Hill overlooking the area of the trench system.

The use of the land is now controlled and removal of artifacts from the site without a permit is prohibited.

An annual journal is published, aimed at curators, collectors, re-enactors and students of military history. Members and non-members have contributed articles to the  journal.