In 1919, the year after the war ended, around 60,000 British tourists and mourners made pilgrimages to the Western Front. The transatlantic voyage was longer and more expensive from Canada; many attempts to organize large pilgrimages failed, and journeys overseas were largely made individually or in small, unofficial groups. The delegates of the 1928 national convention of the Canadian Legion passed a unanimous resolution asking that a pilgrimage be organized to the Western Front battlefields. A plan began to take form wherein the Legion aimed to coordinate the pilgrimage with the unveiling of the Vimy memorial, which at the time was expected to be completed in 1931 or 1932. Due to construction delays with the memorial, it was not until July 1934 that the Canadian Legion announced a pilgrimage to former battlefield sites in conjunction with the unveiling of the memorial. Although the exact date of the memorial unveiling was still not set, the Legion invited former service members to make tentative reservations with their headquarters in Ottawa. The response from veterans and their families was enthusiastic—1,200 inquiries by November 1934. The Legion presumptuously announced that the memorial would be unveiled on Dominion Day, 1 July 1936, even though the government still did not know when it would be completed.