As Remembrance Day approaches, one of the country's last surviving veterans of the First World War has passed away in Halifax. Harold Radford was 106 when he died Friday following a bout with pneumonia.

Residents at the Camp Hill Veteran's Memorial Hospital are mourning the loss of their friend who served with the Nova Scotia Regiment in Vladivostok, Russia from 1918-19. They are remembering him as a soldier who served his country and as an honourable man.

"Being my age, I know that we all have to sometime close our eyes," Second World War veteran Lawrence Feren told CTV News.

Stan Appleby recalled how the two would talk for hours. Radford's children said their father will always be remembered as an exceptional athlete and an even better father.

"He taught me to paddle a canoe, to skate, to swim, how to shoot a puck, how to hit a baseball, how to catch a baseball, how to throw a baseball," Gail Berrigan said.

Radford worked as an army clerk and even though he didn't have to pick up a rifle, his son said he didn't like to talk about the war.

"Dad had some level of discomfort. I guess with the fact maybe he didn't do as much as he could have done. But he did what he was asked to do and that's all you can ask of a soldier," Jack Radford said.

His death leaves Alice Strike, a 106-year-old native of England, as one of the only First World War veterans still living in Nova Scotia. Across the country, only a handful remain.

Radford's death comes at time when many are looking back at the contribution of the country's war veterans. Historians say they are seeing a marked change in pubic attitude towards the occasion.

Now, all generations seem to be reaching out and attendance at Nov. 11 ceremonies appears to be growing steadily.

"There's a real kind of interest there that simply wasn't in the 80s and early 1990s," Jack Granatstein said.

Jonathan Vance, a history professor at the University of Western Ontario, agreed. He said the deaths of six Canadian soldiers in Afghanistan have heightened public awareness.

"It gives people, particularly of the younger generation, a human face to focus on," Vance said. "Those six deaths were so widely publicized. We saw those guys' pictures, we met their families through the news media.

"I think that makes Remembrance Day much more concrete for people for whom it might have been very abstract. It gives them something to focus on."

With reports from CTV's Lillian Au and The Canadian Press