During WWII while the Nazis occupied Belgium, Belgian Maurice Van Landschoot made a point to befriend them.

Maurice drank and chatted with the local Nazi commanders and secured their trust. Meanwhile, while the Nazis weren’t looking Maurice Van Landschoot was organizing the resistance. Van Landschoot dug an escape route and established a way out of the country for airmen shot down over Belgium, as well as fed intelligence about Nazi troop movements to the allied forces.

At the end of the war he was discovered and had to flee into the underground tunnel which he had helped create. He was saved from a certain death by Canadian forces who swept into the county, and though taking many losses, defeated the Nazis. Maurice Van Landschoot felt he owed his life to the Canadians and that they weren’t as recognized as war heroes as their American and Britsh counterparts. With this in mind, on his deathbed he made a tall request to his son: commemorate the sacrifice of the Canadian WWII veterans. His son Gilbert Van Landschoot did just that.

Known as the Canada Museum, it features an impressive collection of authentic World War II paraphernalia, and the associated and amazing Maple-Leaf Miniature Museum which displays a dozen authentic WW II battlefields in 1/35 scale. The museum complex is also host to some beautiful gardens, including a French Garden with thousands of roses, an English garden with ponds and waterfalls, a Japanese garden with a magnificent rock which symbolizes the life of man, and an “Exotics Garden” with a neo-druidic theme complete with menhirs (rocks standing upright in the ground) and a “druid circle.”