Valcartier camp

    Valcartier camp was the incredibly large camp Sam Hughes set up in Quebec in the onset of the war to train the massive amount of new recruits witch were pouring in. With 32,000 men and 8000 horses it was the largest camp of it's kind in canada.
    Set up in a matter of weeks, the soldiers completed only three weeks of training in the camp before they were shipped off to England. Hughes kept the training so short for two main reasons; he knew the camp would not survive the harsh winter witch was shortly to come and also because he strongly supported the idea of having civilian soldiers rather than professional ones.
    Once the first battalion was finished training they were ready to ship out but not before Hughes gave a lengthy pep talk on horseback. Soon, the decision to ship the soldiers out became a mistake as they stayed on the Salisbury Plain in England with the wettest winter they had ever seen creating an incredibly muddy and cold landscape. Spending their nights and days soaking wet, cold, and starving with very little blankets, their poorly constructed canadian made boots let water pour in through holes. It could have been somewhat helpful to prepare them for the even worse conditions of trench warfare.