'Highway of Heroes' bears slain Canadian soldier home

The body of a Canadian soldier shot dead while guarding the country’s war memorial in Ottawa returned to his hometown on Friday, after thousands of his countrymen paid tribute along the nation’s “Highway of Heroes.” Crowds of people lined much of the roughly 500km route along Lake Ontario while a black hearse accompanied by dozens of police vehicles bore the slain soldier, Corporal Nathan Cirillo, 24, back to Hamilton, Ontario. Police said a home-grown radical, Michael Zehaf-Bibeau, killed Cirillo on Wednesday before running into the Parliament building where he was shot dead near where Prime Minister Stephen Harper was meeting with lawmakers. More than 1,000 mourners packed the street around the funeral home, raising their voices in a soft chorus of the Canadian national anthem as the motorcade bearing Cirillo’s body arrived.

I remember him for the courage, the bravery, the selflessness. I just wanted to be here to support him and his family.

43-year-old resident Cathy McLennan, who came to pay tribute

All along the route from Ottawa, crowds waved flags and broke out in applause as the motorcade including Cirillo’s hearse passed by. The “Highway of Heroes” tradition dates to 2002 when Canada’s first war dead began returning from Afghanistan, said Pete Fisher, author of “Highway of Heroes: True Patriot Love,” which was published in 2011. The route leads to a coroner’s office in Toronto from an air base in Trenton, Ontario, where soldiers killed overseas were first taken. Mourners in the past have flocked to overpasses, hanging flags as a sign of respect.

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