New book explores and celebrates history of Woodstock Legion as it commemorates 100 years
Independent journalist, author, and Woodstock native Nathan Delong has long been interested in Woodstock’s history.
“For a town that claims to take so much pride in its heritage, there hadn’t been any recent volumes or books published to tell that story and to help people learn about how we got where we are,” said Delong.
From 2 to 4:30 p.m. on Saturday, July 18, at the Royal Canadian Legion Branch 11 in Woodstock, DeLong will conduct a presentation and launch his newest book, Serving Beyond the Battlefield: The 100 Year Legacy of the Royal Canadian Legion Branch 11.
The book’s release coincides with the Royal Canadian Legion’s 100th Anniversary.
In 2021, DeLong launched his first book, Woodstock: New Brunswick’s Oldest Town Through the Years
The new book’s release coincides with the Legion’s 100th-anniversary celebration this weekend.
Commemorative events will be taking place at Legions across Canada this weekend. In a news release, New Brunswick Premier Susan Holt encouraged people across the province to help with celebrations.
“Throughout its centennial year, the Legion is marking this milestone with commemorative events and activities across Canada. New Brunswickers are encouraged to take part in local celebrations and recognize the contributions of Legion members, veterans, and military families in their communities,” she said in the news release.
The idea for the book initially came from a conversation DeLong had with a Legion member about them potentially giving a presentation on the anniversary.
From there, DeLong became enamoured with the subject and began pouring in hours into researching the group.
“The information basically came together over the last several months… probably around late September/early October 2025, I kind of got serious about putting a book together and thought it would be the best way of telling the story,” explained DeLong.
“A lot of the process to write it was spent researching newspaper records and researching through a copy of a book that I believe was published n 1960 about the history of the Legion as a national organization up to that point and going through microfilm newspaper records at the UNB [University of New Brunswick] library,” he said.
Some of the more interesting things that DeLong found when writing the book were the large amount of fragmentation between veterans groups before the Legion’s formation.
“They weren’t all rowing in the same direction,” noted DeLong. “There were some probably narratives and propaganda being circulated at the time [between the groups],” he noted.
The book is split into eight chapters and four appendices, starting by covering veterans groups before the Legion, its formation, and continuing through a variety of subjects such as the Ladies’ Auxiliaries and the Legion today.
Delong believes the book and the celebrations are important to the community as they remind people of their heritage and why we need to remember.
