'She was one of a kind': Monument built in B.C. honouring Halifax native who died in crash 4 years ago

In Kamloops, B.C., a monument stands to honour a Halifax native by the name of Captain Jennifer Casey, who died tragically four years ago from Friday in an airshow exercise with the Snowbirds.

The monument itself also tells a story.

“The plane is representing the spirit of Jennifer Casey, as she soared above us. The leaves, they represent the feelings, the emotions of Canadians as we went through this ordeal together, and then the branches representative of Canadians joining together to lift up this memory of a hero,” said Sarah Holliday, a Kamloops artist who built the monument.

Holliday says the day of the crash, the community came together.

“When the tragedy struck people started putting a make-shift memorial together along the fence which is actually just behind the memorial, and I saw a message that said ‘May She Soar,’ and it had a picture I think a kid had drawn of a plane,” she said.

“I thought, that’s what it needs to be called, ‘May She Soar.’”

Holliday says the monument for Casey was a project unlike any other she’s built.

“I’m a landscape designer, but I haven’t ever done anything like this. I’ve always been an artist and been into drawing and designing, this just sort of caught my attention, and I had an idea for it,” said Sarah Holliday.

“It was a huge challenge and it was just something I really wanted to do.”

Capt. Jennifer Casey is pictured.

Casey and the Snowbirds were doing an exercise called Operation Inspiration, which hoped to inspire Canadians in a tough time, with the COVID-19 pandemic, as well as the 2020 Nova Scotia mass shooting.

“When COVID had come along and we had the mass shooting here, it was in no way a surprise that she and the Snowbirds had devised the idea of Operation Inspiration,” said close friend of Casey’s, Corinne MacLellan.

“Exactly in the vein of something she would shoulder.”

Maclellan says Casey was very passionate about what she did, and would be the brightest person in the room at any time.

“She would never understand, I don’t believe, that she would have that impact and that wake in her memory,” said MacLellan.

“She was one of a kind.”