Crosses row on row in a Cape Breton field

Row on row of white crosses are paying tribute to veterans from a Cape Breton community who fought and died overseas.

Members of the Royal Canadian Legion Branch 8 in Sydney Mines have erected 138 handmade crosses in a field next to the local cenotaph.

Each cross bears the name of a veteran from the community who was killed in wartime: 76 in the First World War, 59 in the Second World War and one in the Korean War.

There are also single crosses in remembrance of merchant marines and the Unknown Soldier.

"Isn't it striking?" said Sydney Mines resident ChristineBurt.

She and her husband were out for their daily walkand stopped to look at the display.

"We walked through them to look at some of the names. And it's, like, it's eerie, if you know what I mean," she said.

Members of Branch 8 came up with the idea as a way to spotlight the sacrifice of veterans.

The nearby cenotaph bears the name of all the veterans, but Kevin Miller, a local contractor who helped with the project, saidthe individual crosses have more impact.

"How many times do people drive by the cenotaph, and they don't stop?" Miller asked. "People are driving by the crosses and they're actually stopping, and they're getting out of their cars, and they're taking pictures."

A building supply store in Sydney donated the materials for the crosses, which took about 75 hours to construct and paint.

George MacIntosh, the legion's sergeant-at-arms, saidphone calls have been coming in from across the country since the crosses went up this week.

"People are calling, saying how nice it is," he said. "Lots of people probably didn't realize there was that many, the exact number, that never came home."

MacIntosh saidthey're also getting calls from people who want to put up crosses in memory of family members who were in the Armed Forces, but he saidthe display is limited to those who died in the wars.

The crosses will be taken down after Remembrance Day ceremoniesand put in storage for next year.