OUR STORIES IN STONE PART 9 In search of ’s warrior spirit

CHRIS MIKULA, THE CITIZEN The Monument is not a war memorial — it’s a monument to those who prevent war. Sculptor Jack Harman strikes a good balance between warrior and peacekeeper. Heroic monuments, obscure memorials and geometric forms reflect a nation’s sacrifice

BY ROBERT SIBLEY By 1943, the was running reflect similar sacrifice. short of officers in its numerous cam- The National Artillery Memorial, anadians are often told Canada paigns around the world. The Canadian which was originally in ’s Hill Park lacks a martial spirit. We are Army, on the other hand, was fighting but relocated in 1959 to the west side of peacekeepers, not warriors. Yet, only in Italy and had more officers than Rideau Falls Park on Green Island, hon- all day as I continue my search could be deployed to active . ours the “glorious memory of the offi- Cfor Ottawa’s monuments, I’ve The Canadian government offered to cers and men of the Royal of seen evidence to the contrary. “loan” junior officers to the British on a Canada who gave their lives in the ser- Take, for example, the Canloan Memo- voluntary basis, under the code name vice of Canada.” rial. The triangular stone cenotaph is, ar- CANLOAN. On the east side of the park, the guably, one of the more obscure war Nearly 700 volunteers stepped for- Mackenzie-Papineau Monument com- memorials in Ottawa. ward. Many took part in the invasion and memorates the 1,546 Canadians who It occupies a circular pad on the east liberation of Europe in 1944 and 1945. fought against the fascists during the bank of the Rideau River, across Sussex All told, the Canloan volunteers suffered Spanish Civil War between 1936 and Drive from Rideau Falls Park, commem- 75-per-cent casualties — 128 killed, 310 1939. orating the infantry of- wounded and 27 taken prisoner. Unveiled in 2001, it includes a long ficers who served with British Most of the military monuments I’ve wall with the names of Mac-Pap volun- during the Second World War. seen while walking along teers. A detail from the Commonwealth Air Force Memorial.

promote a warrior mand if one is to keep the .” spirit? The question You enter the monument along a path seems especially between shell-broken walls symboliz- applicable to the ing opposing sides in a conflict. The Peacekeeping Mon- pathway is littered with rubble, but it The Canloan Memorial commemorates the Canadian ument at the inter- converges at another wall on top of Army infantry officers who served with British regiments section of Sussex which stand the three soldiers, watch- during the Second World War. Drive and St. ing over a tentative peace. To the right, Patrick Street. there’s a “sacred grove” of trees and a The Commonwealth Air Force Memo- The monument, entitled Reconcilia- grassed area symbolizing hope. rial, unveiled in 1959, is nearby. It in- tion, commemorates the more than Supposedly, this design satisfied cludes a stylized bronze sculpture of the 100,000 members of the Canadian mili- everyone. As scholar John Roberts ex- globe and long walls with the names of tary who’ve served in peacekeeping plains in his 1999 Carleton University 809 men and women who lost their lives missions around the world. Unveiled in M.A. thesis, Nation-Building and Mon- while serving or training in Common- 1992, it depicts three peacekeepers — umentalization in the Contemporary wealth air forces operating from bases in two men and a woman — standing Capital, soldiers can identify with it be- Canada, the Caribbean and the United guard over the shattered remains of a cause it reflects their experience, while States. They have no known grave, or foreign street. the public recognizes symbolic images were buried at crash sites that can’t be I’ve long felt ambivalent about this from war-torn regions where Canadian maintained. monument, uncertain whether it suc- peacekeepers have served. While Rec- Walking the length of the walls, read- ceeds in balancing the figurative (those onciliation may not be a monument to ing names at random — Pilot F.J. three soldiers) and the abstract (those those who have fought in war, it is a Kruszynski, Royal Air Force; Flight Sgt. shattered walls) to achieve its symbolic monument to something that is cer- G.A. Soeder, ; purpose. I sometimes think the fact on- tainly worth commemorating — those R.K. Manttan, Pilot Officer, Royal Aus- ly one of the soldiers is armed suggests who prevent war. tralian Air Force; 1943, Section Officer passivity, as does their static posture. Yet, sitting against a willow tree over- Irene Watson, Royal Canadian Air Force But over the years I’ve been recon- hanging the Rideau River, studying the — I’m struck by the difference in style ciled to Reconciliation. It is not a war Canloan Memorial, I find I still prefer between these monuments and other memorial; it’s a monument to those old-fashioned monuments. I walk over war memorials such as the National War who prevent war. So, perhaps, the re- to run my fingers across the plaques Memorial and The Canadian Phalanx off striction on warrior symbolism is ap- with their embossed names of the dead. Wellington Street I’ve visited in recent propriate. In my research I’d read that True, there’s nothing glorifying war days. the monument’s co-sponsors, the De- here either, but there is an implicit The latter monuments are built in partment of National Defence and the recognition of the warrior spirit and its heroic proportion, with figurative stat- National Capital Commission, were necessity. The fallen, says the com- ues in martial poses. The ones I’m find- sometimes at loggerheads. The latter memoration, “are honoured in this qui- ing today, many unveiled in the 1950s and didn’t want anything too warlike, while et place in gratitude and remembrance 1960s, abandon heroic figures, and any the former was not going to have its sol- of the cost of liberty.” explicit reference to heroism, in favour diers portrayed as glorified baby-sitters. Someone wedged a poppy in a crack of granite and concrete walls, geometric The winning design by sculptor Jack in the stone. Maybe Canada’s warrior forms, plaques and cairns. Harman strikes a good balance be- spirit is not forgotten. Do these monuments reflect a con- tween the warrior and the peacekeeper, scious effort to downplay the motif of achieving, as the monument jury put it, Robert Sibley is a senior writer for the earlier eras so as not to glorify war or “the need for strength, action and com- Citizen.

2