A wooden arch has been unveiled on the Halifax waterfront near where thousands of Canadian soldiers left for the First World War. Dozens of boot prints are burned into the boardwalk on a pier leading to a gangway beneath the arch, symbolizing what were many soldiers’ last steps on Canadian soil. The arch pays tribute to the departure of the first full battalion of Nova Scotia soldiers to fight in the Great War. In May 1915, more than a thousand soldiers with the 25th Battalion boarded H-M-T-S Saxonia bound for the front lines.