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Remembrance Day

Annual Kamloops Remembrance Day ceremony to include salute by 2141 steam locomotive

Nov 10, 2026 | 5:14 PM

KAMLOOPS — The thousands of Kamloops-and-area residents who gather at Riverside Park for the annual Remembrance Day ceremony Wednesday (Nov. 11) morning will be greeted with a different kind of salute just after 11:00 a.m.


“Right after the moment of silence, the Kamloops Heritage Railway Society are going to be blowing the whistle of the steam train engine,” Mike Young, the president of the Kamloops Legion, told CFJC. “That’s apparently an old railroader tradition, something that I didn’t know about and learned this year.”

“When they approached us, we said we’d love to have you be part of our program.”

That salute will replace the fighter jet fly-over seen in years past. With the 419 Squadron stood down, Young said it was “tough” for the logistics to be worked out.

“We’re hoping that there will be a couple of members of the Royal Canadian Air Force from Cold Lake who will join us,” Young added.

People who wish to be at the ceremony are asked to gather at the Riverside Park cenotaph by 10:30 a.m. Wednesday, as the colour parade will be marched in at 10:50 a.m. The ceremony will begin with a moment of silence at 11:00 a.m.

Following the service at the park, veterans, RCMP officers, the Rocky Mountain Rangers and members of other service and military units will march down First Avenue towards Victoria Street before heading east to Fifth Avenue to be dismissed.

Young said a social gathering with lunch and refreshments will follow at the Kamloops Legion on Lansdowne Street as well as the ANAVets on Tranquille Road. There will also be an open house at the J.R. Vicars Armoury on McGill Road.

“As a veteran, when I’m down at the park and I look at the thousands of people that are there, it’s a humbling experience,” Young added. “It really is.”

Veterans Affairs Canada on Tuesday said the number of living veterans of the Second World War and the Korean War has fallen to approximately 4,306, down from 5,649 last year. Most veterans from the Second World War are at in their late 90s, while Korean War veterans are in their early-to-mid-90s.

Young said it is important to remember not just the service and sacrifice of those soldiers, but that of all veterans.

“There are lots of soldiers that served as peacekeepers that lost their lives and we need to remember those,” Young said. “And then of course, just recently the tragedy in Wainwright and the soldiers that we lost there and the many that were injured. We have to remember them.”

“Our country was built on the soldiers that fought and so I think its important that once a year, at least once a year, we get together and we remember those that paid the ultimate sacrifice.”

CFJC will have full coverage of the Remembrance Day ceremony on TV as well as on our website, starting at 10:30 a.m. Wednesday.