Regimental headquarters were established at the Halifax Armouries, with recruitment offices in Sydney, Amherst, New Glasgow, Truro and Yarmouth.

They fought in the Actions of St. Eloi Craters (27 March – 16 April 1916), at Hill 62, Mount Sorrel and Sanctuary Wood.

In those actions the Canadians reconquered vital high-ground positions that denied the Germans a commanding view of the town of Ypres itself.

The objective of the Canadian Corps was to take control of the German-held high ground along an escarpment at the northernmost end of the Arras Offensive.

The town of Thélus fell during the second day of the attack, as did the crest of the ridge once the Canadian Corps overcame a salient of considerable German resistance.

The final objective, a fortified knoll located outside the town of Givenchy-en-Gohelle, fell to the Canadian Corps on 12 April.

Due to the hundreds of thousands of casualties at Ypres, the poppies that sprang up from the battlefield afterwards, later immortalised in the Canadian poem "In Flanders Fields", written by John McCrae, have become a symbol for lives lost in war.

The Battle of Passchendaele took place between June and November 1917, for control of the ridges south and east of the Belgian city of Ypres.