Recruit, you must complete your basic training successfully in order to go overseas

After a long, very uncomfortable train ride, with rest stops in several cities, you finally reach Valcartier. You disembark at the small Valcartier siding and then march five kilometres to the camp. The camp is huge, with five square kilometres of tents in long rows. Everything is raw and new, with a strong smell of frest cut wood.

A staff of 25 regular army officers spends the next three weeks running you through rudimentary military training such as marching, rifle practice, and bayonet drill. Training at Valcartier was very basic. The aim of the camp was simply to form the men into cohesive units that could be sent to Britain for their real training. Training that would bring them up to British Army standards.

Training at Valcartier ended on Sept. 27, when the troops took trains to the port in Quebec City and were loaded onto 31 transport ships. Formed into a 30-kilometre-long convoy, they set sail on Oct. 3 and arrived in Plymouth. Meanwhile, the Valcartier base had closed for the winter, and reopened in the spring of 1915. By 1915 Hughes had ordered the construction of training bases across Canada. In addition to Valcartier, these included Camp Aldershot, Kentville, NS, Camp Sussex, NB, Camp Petawawa, ON, Camp Borden, Camp Hughes, Carberry, MN, and Sarcee Camp, Calgary, AB.