Juno Beach
— — the long flat sand the Canadians ran across.
Not only on a wall.
“The eight-kilometre stretch of Normandy sand that the Canadian Third Infantry Division landed on at first light on the sixth of June, 1944. Today it is a working coast again: a fishing harbour at Courseulles, summer cabins along the dune, oystermen at low tide. The Juno Beach Centre stands a little back from the water. The tide goes out a long way, and at low water the beach is enormous and quiet. — from the studio
Juno Beach, on ceramic.
Each tile is finished by hand in our Knoxville studio. Artwork is slowly infused into the ceramic surface under high heat and pressure, and rests beneath a thin glossy finish. The colour lives in the surface, not on top of it.
Pick any four 4-inch tiles — National Parks you've been to, a Smokies set, the four seasons of one place. $ for a set of , cork-backed, ready to live on the table.
The place, in three passes.
Juno was the code-name for the Canadian sector of the Normandy landings on the sixth of June, 1944. It ran about eight kilometres along the Calvados coast between Saint-Aubin-sur-Mer in the east and Courseulles-sur-Mer in the west, sitting between the British sectors of Sword and Gold. The Canadian Third Infantry Division and the Second Canadian Armoured Brigade came ashore here under heavy fire from German strongpoints. By nightfall Canadian troops had pushed further inland than any other Allied force that day, though they did not reach the planned objective at Carpiquet.
The Juno Beach Centre, opened in 2003, sits on the dune at Courseulles-sur-Mer and is the only Canadian museum on the D-Day coast. It is run by a private Canadian charity and tells the story of the landings and of Canada in the Second World War more broadly. Outside the building, the Cosy bunker and the remains of a German strongpoint can be walked through with a guide. The graves of more than 2,000 Canadian dead lie inland at the Bény-sur-Mer Canadian War Cemetery, about four kilometres south. Admission to the Centre is charged; the cemetery is free and always open.
Today the beach is a working stretch of Normandy coast. The harbour at Courseulles still lands oysters and scallops, and the village holds a market on Tuesday and Friday mornings. Summer cabins line the dune from Bernières to Saint-Aubin, painted in the Norman pastels. At low tide the sand runs out hundreds of metres and a thin film of water holds the sky. Some German bunker remains have been left in place along the seawall, half-buried, half-graffitied; others have been cleaned and signed. The combination of holiday coast and battlefield is what most visitors carry away.