The idea that Canada's national identity and nationhood were born out of the Battle of Vimy Ridge is an opinion that is widely repeated in military and general histories of Canada. Historian Denise Thomson suggests that the construction of the Vimy memorial represents the culmination of an increasingly assertive nationalism that developed in Canada during the interwar period. Hucker suggests that the memorial transcends the Battle of Vimy Ridge and now serves as an enduring image of the whole First World War, while expressing the enormous impact of war in general, and also considers that the 2005 restoration project serves as evidence of a new generation's determination to remember Canada's contribution and sacrifice during the First World War. The Historic Sites and Monuments Board of Canada recognized the importance of the site by recommending its designation as one of the National Historic Sites of Canada; it was so designated in 1996, and is one of only two outside of Canada. The other is the Beaumont-Hamel Newfoundland Memorial, also in France. Remembrance has also taken other forms: the Vimy Foundation, having been established to preserve and promote Canada's First World War legacy as symbolized by the victory at the Battle of Vimy Ridge, and Vimy Ridge Day, to commemorate the deaths and casualties during the battle. Local Vimy resident Georges Devloo spent 13 years until his death in 2009 offering car rides to Canadian tourists to and from the memorial at no charge, as a way of paying tribute to the Canadians who fought at Vimy. The memorial is not without its critics. Alana Vincent has argued that constituent parts of the monument are in conflict, and as a result the message conveyed by the monument is not unified. Visually, Vincent argues there is a dichotomy between the triumphant pose of the figures at the top of the pylons and the mourning posture of those figures at the base. Textually, she argues the inscription text celebrating the victory at the Battle of Vimy Ridge strikes a very different tone to the list of names of the missing at the base of the monument. The memorial is regularly the subject or inspiration of other artistic projects. In 1931, Will Longstaff painted Ghosts of Vimy Ridge, depicting ghosts of men from the Canadian Corps on Vimy Ridge surrounding the memorial, though the memorial was still several years away from completion. The memorial has