One hundred years ago, the First World War was raging and young Maritimers were called upon to serve our fledgling country. Now, a new travelling exhibit is detailing New Brunswick's contributions to the Great War.

During the First World War, 27,000 New Brunswickers enlisted and as many as 17,000 went overseas.

Their story is an integral part of the Fredericton Region Museum and now, part of their mobile exhibit.

“We recognize that not everybody will have the opportunity to visit us in the museum, but we would love it if they could, so the value in that for us is to kind of create a little community awareness of what we do and about our community's history,” says Ruth Murgatroyd of the York Sunbury Historical Society.

The new mobile exhibit was drawn from the museum’s permanent World War One display.

Six panels document everything from enlistment, to deployment, to the efforts to support troops on the home front. It depicts the pomp and circumstance associated with going off to war, as well as the brutality soldiers witnessed.

“We talk about trench warfare between 1914 and 1918, the First World War and then on the second panel, we discuss the western front and then we do life on the front and what conditions were like for the soldiers on the front lines using images,” says Murgatroyd.

Sixty thousand Canadians never returned from what is known as the Great War, including 2,400 New Brunswickers.

Several units from the province gained notoriety, the most famous being the 26th Battalion.

Brent Wilson is the head of the New Brunswick Military Heritage Project and a military historian at the University of New Brunswick.

He says the 26th was formed in early 1914 and was among the first Canadian units thrust into the fight.

“About 6,000 troops served with that battalion and they played a significant role in many of the major battles that the Canadian corps, as a whole, were involved in during the war, they were in the forefront in several of the major battles,” says Wilson.

From the fighting 26th, to individual stories of service and survival, the New Brunswickers and the Great War exhibit tells it all.

With files from CTV Atlantic's Andy Campbell