From the ashes of the Quebec City armoury fire to coin of honour

Lt.-Col. Jonathan Chouinard was there the night the of the armoury fire on April 4, 2008, like so many other members of the Voltigeurs who heard the news and came to see it for themselves.

• Historic Quebec City building burns down
• Quebec City armoury to be rebuilt

The Voltigeurs, based in Quebec City, are the oldest French-Canadian regiment. The armoury,the symbolic home to thereservists built in 1885, was in ruins.

"I was back in Quebec from Afghanistan, I was on a break. But like every Voltigeur,we all went to see what was going on," Chouinard said.

"We have always been in that building. That's why it struck us."

The roof collapsed that night,sending tonnes of copper into the rubble below. Eight years later, the armoury is in the process of being rebuilt, and the Voltigeurs have turnedanother page in the history of their unit.

From twisted metal to coin

Chouinard, the commanding officer of the Voltigeurs, said most armies have a coin they can give out, but the Voltigeurs didn't have one of their own.

With a shipping container full of twisted copper, he started to think of possibilities.

He connected with Charles-Olivier Roy, an artisan from Lvis who works on projects involving history and technology. Roy turned to avariety of people, including artisans in Quebec City and Sherbrooke who are experienced metal workers.

"We're not the Canadian mint, but I think we achieved something very interesting and the quality, it's there," Roy said.

Turning chunks of metal into coins involves several steps. First, the copper is scraped into chips. Then it is melted down and turned into ingots and laminated into a consistent thickness. The next step involves striking blanks, which looks like circles cut out of cookie dough.

Next the images were stamped onto the coins by a business in Sherbrooke. Roy said it took about a year and a half from the time he pitched the coin idea to having a final product.

"We wanted to show in every aspect to make sure that collectors and people in general would be interested in having a piecelike that," Roy said.

He also wants to honour the legacy of the regiment, which will award a special version of the coin, known as a piedfort, to one soldier each year for the next half a century.

"You are using the best of the technology of today, but for a legacy for them for the next 50 years."

The images on the coin show the original copper roof. There are also three soldiers, representing a battle from each of the three centuries in which the Voltigeurs were active a soldier from the North West Rebellion, a soldier from the Second World War and a solder from Afghanistan.

In the foreground isLt.-Col.Charles-Michel de Salaberry, the man who founded the Canadian Voltigeurs, guiding the next soldier forward. It'sbased on the statue of Salaberry that stands outside of the Quebec National Assembly.

One deserving soldier each year to receive special coin

The first piedfortcoin twice asthick as the otherswas awarded this past weekendafter the Remembrance Day parade to Cpl. Pier-Luk Ferland.

A handful of other coins will be handed out during the year for merit. Members of the public can also purchase one for themselves.