For Castlegar’s fire chief, Gerry Rempel, a recent trip to Busan (Pusan) South Korea was a time for reflection.

Rempel, who is Metis and was just last year appointed an Elder, conducted an Aboriginal ceremony at the United Nations Memorial Cemetery in Busan.

“The ceremony was originally at the request of the Metis Nation BC Veterans Committee to honour the Aboriginal soldiers buried there, which I did as well as to all the 378 Canadians interred there. The wreath was donated by the RC Legion Castlegar-Robson Branch 170,” Rempel said.

Due to export rules, Rempel was unable to transport ceremonial goods such as tobacco, sage, cedar, sweet grass and an eagle feather. Instead, Rempel said he improvised and used tobacco bought in S. Korea.

The smudging ceremony, said Rempel, is extremely spiritual in that Aboriginals believe tobacco represents the east and that the smoke wafts up to the spirit world and carries your thoughts with it.

Rempel would like to believe that to be true.

“My thoughts were for all the Canadians buried there and all the Aboriginals. What many people don’t know is that 27,000 Canadians served in Korea. They know about the Americans and MASH, but they really don’t know about the Canadians.”

What’s particularly poignant, said Rempel, is that Canada’s policy during the Korean war was to simply bury their dead where they fell.

“These people are a long way from home and the families, in a lot of cases, never get to visit,” he explained.

Rempel, on request from a friend, visited two graves while there. His friend’s cousin, Norman Ferland was only 20 when he died in the Korean war, his other cousin, platoon sargeant, Joe Koch was just 19 when he fell in battle.

This resonated with Rempel who lost an uncle in Hong Kong. His uncle, Ernie Boswell was taken prisoner in Korea on Christmas Day and eventually died of starvation while imprisoned.

Rempel was finally able to visit his grave. He was the first family member to do so.

The cemetery covers over 35 acres and was established by the United Nations Command on January 18, 1951, when interments were begun and now contains the bodies of 2,300 men, 378 of those are Canadian. The Korean government granted the land to the United Nations without charge, in perpetuity, as a permanent tribute to all those who gave up their lives in resisting aggression in Korea and in upholding the cause of peace and freedom from 1950-53.