A nice discovery close to Ottawa!
Finch Ontario was originally allocated this 24cm, Flügel Minenwerfer, and it was shipped there by Canadian Pacific Railways Dec. 20th, 1922. This is a very rare piece today, and there were only ever a handful of these shipped back to Canada. Regrettably, nothing is known about its capture. It is quite corroded and the mounting has been sunk into concrete. The builder’s plate is in good condition, though, and shows that this was produced in 1917. There is only one (known) other similar type of Trench Mortar in Canada, on display at the RCA Museum in Shilo, Manitoba. With thanks to Mike Calnan, Swords & Ploughshares Museum for mentioning that there was a trench mortar in Finch, and a nice lady at the local corner store, for telling me where the “big old cannon” was!
The Searchers 
Excellent post! We will be linking to this particularly great article on our site.
Keep up the great writing.