When 15-year-old Cole Matheson sets foot on the historic grounds of the Canadian National Vimy Memorial in France next week, he’ll become the fourth generation of his family to do so.

One hundred years ago this month, Canadian soldiers - including Major John Matheson, Cole’s great grandfather - defeated German Forces in the Battle of Vimy Ridge, an encounter that would become the defining moment of Canada’s involvement in World War I.

On Thursday, Cole, his father Craig, and his 84-year-old grandfather Dr. Donald Matheson will all depart for France, where they will attend a ceremony commemorating the 100th anniversary of the battle.

For Donald Matheson, the upcoming trip is his latest journey to a place he first visited when he was just three years old, when his family traveled to France for the original opening of the memorial in 1936. Donald told CTV News he doesn’t recall much from that trip - he was too young to attend the actual ceremony - but he had a sense of how important it was to his father.

“It was a very big deal,” he said. “I understood how important it was for my father to take his family over there.”

Today, the pilgrimage to Europe for the 100th anniversary of the battle holds a similar significance for Donald.

“I’m really proud of both my son and my grandson for being interested and wanting to do it,” he said.

“It’s a long time ago, now. It’s 100 years. The younger generations in Canada, I’m not sure they know much about it, and I’m not sure they’re very interested in it … I think Canadians need to know the enormous sacrifices that were made by Canadians at a time when there was only 8 million in the country.”

Cole Matheson is a part of one of those younger generations, and he said he has learned a lot more about his family and its history as a result of preparing for the trip.

“He was one of the first Canadian soldiers to sign up for the war,” Cole said of his great grandfather. “One of the things he was most proud of was fighting at the Battle of Vimy Ridge.”

John Matheson entered the army as a private, volunteering shortly after the war broke out in 1914. He was 30 years old - considerably older than many of the other men who signed up during those early days.

Donald said his father was born in Scotland, and wanted to go to war to defend his place of birth and to have an adventure.

The reality of war set in quickly, however, and as John rose through the ranks to become a major, he expected to be killed like so many of his friends were.

“He didn’t expect to survive the war,” Donald said. “He didn’t talk about it much. He was clearly proud of his war service, but like a lot of them, I think, when they came back, they wanted to put it behind them.”

Craig Matheson, Cole’s father, developed a fascination with World War I and his family’s role in it from a very young age. He remembers visiting his grandparents’ apartment in Victoria, where John Matheson proudly displayed a pair of shell casings he had brought home with him from the war at the end of the hallway leading to his front door.

“I can remember him sitting in his chair, stuffing his pipe, and me asking him questions,” Craig Matheson said.

Over the years, Craig has collected lots of World War I memorabilia. He has dozens of his grandfather’s photos, several knives and bayonets, a spiked German helmet his grandfather brought back with him, and a piece of barbed wire he brought back himself on a previous visit to the Vimy memorial.

He said he’s been collecting these artifacts for as long as he can remember.

“The stuff was so bizarre and foreign that they had brought back,” he said of his attitude when he was a child. “I thought it was very interesting. He had won his medal and he had survived. In and of itself, I thought that was an amazing feat.”

His collection has turned into a source of information and inspiration for his son, who did a project about his family’s involvement in World War I in preparation for the trip.