The Sanctuary Wood and Hill 62 Museum is a great place to learn about the Ypres Salient (Katie Wells)

I hear French, and English, but above all, excitement. A group of school kids peers into stereoscopes lined up on tall wooden benches. They pop their heads up with a “Whoa!” “Dead body.” “Holy crap!” and trade places. A teacher shushes them without success. My friend Mandy and I are at the Sanctuary Wood and Hill 62 Museum in Ypres, Belgium.

We wait patiently, then take our turn. I flip through pictures of the solemn and gruesome moments of war. We exchange a silent glance before trading and looking into a few other ones. Battle scars on the landscape, fallen soldiers and artillery flash by. Some of the images are disturbing.

Look through rare stereoscopes to see photos from the battlefields of the Western Front. (Katie Wells)

Sanctuary Wood and Hill 62 Museum in Ypres, Belgium, has plenty of World War I relics and photos of the battlefields (Katie Wells)

Photos of the destruction caused by the battles of the Ypres Salient during World War I (Katie Wells)

“It feels like there should be some sort of warning,” she says.

I agree as we walk outside to one of the many battle sites in the region, a preserved World War I trench.

Despite the battle-scarred landscape, Sactuary Wood is a peaceful place. (Katie Wells)

The trench is well preserved at the Sanctuary Wood and Hill 62 Museum (Katie Wells)

Walk through the well preserved trenches at the Sanctuary Wood and Hill 62 Museum (Katie Wells)

It’s quiet and the sun is shining despite a soft drizzle. The school group has moved on to another part of the museum. We walk down into the trench and imagine what it was like for the soldiers who navigated them daily during World War I. There’s not much drainage, and water pools at the bottom. We take some narrow, stone stairs and stroll along the top of the trench for a bird’s eye view.

British troops used Sanctuary Wood as a safe haven to shelter and regroup in 1914, during the Ypres Salient, but it soon became one of the most dangerous areas. Between June 2 and June 13, 1916, German troops launched a surprise attack to gain the high ground known as the Battle of Mount Sorrel. Canadian Forces suffered over 8,400 casualties during the trench warfare but eventually reclaimed the position along with Hill 61 and 62, which you can visit nearby at Sanctuary Wood.

After the war, a Belgian farmer, Shier, returned to his land. Instead of leveling it, he decided to preserve the trench network, rusted artillery and dugouts. Hill 62 now has a memorial to commemorate the Canadian Corps who defended the southern stretches of the Ypres Salient. It is one of the few places where visitors can walk through authentic communication trenches on the Western Front.

The school kids come out quieter. Maybe it’s a different group. They seem younger. We come to a spot where we can get back down into the trench and we follow an older couple into a tunnel. I wobble on some loose rock, and my foot splashes down into the mud. We can barely see a thing. We move through nearly folded in half and I start to wonder if there is an opening at the end. The kids make their way in and start screaming. They might be pretending to be afraid of the dark, playing at war or just horsing around. To us, the theatrics echo loudly and the splashing indicates they are gaining on us. I watch my footing and quicken my pace. I’m ready to get out. Finally, there is light and I can stand up straight. I take a deep breath and try to calm my heartbeat.

Inside a trench tunnel at the Sanctuary Wood and Hill 62 Museum (Katie Wells)

“That felt like war,” Mandy says half-jokingly, but she’s not totally wrong. The noise made it easier to envision what things may have been like.

We walk back up some steps and look out at the landscape. The kids explode out of the tunnel laughing and a nearby teacher shushes them again. And they laugh some more. Mandy and I giggle.

“It must be like a cool obstacle course to them,” I say.

A group of school kids walk through the trench in Sanctuary Wood (Katie Wells)

It’s a place where hundreds of lives were lost, yet today, kids go on field trips and have fun exploring the tunnels and walking the trench while learning about history.

It is a peaceful spot. The forest looks out into a bright green pasture, trees grow tall and some of the craters are filled with water—perfect little ponds. The landscape is scarred, but life has continued to grow around it. 

The landscape is marked with craters from World War I (Mandy Mills)

Craters from battle turn into pools of water when it rains at Sacntuary Wood in Belgium. (Katie Wells)