OUR STORIES IN STONE PART 1 In Ottawa, we’re so accustomed to statues and memorials that we no longer see them. They are … Sites unseen

CHRIS MIKULA, THE OTTAWA CITIZEN But Citizen writer ROBERT SIBLEY and photographer CHRIS MIKULA, left, stopped to take a closer look. Here are their impressions of our memorials — and what they tell us about ourselves and the soul of the city. Stopping among statues Monuments are stories in stone and bronze that reflect who we are and where we came from. Here in Ottawa, we’re so used to these memorials that we no longer see them. But say you made time to stop? Where would you go? And where would it take you? ROBERT SIBLEY finds out on a hunt for the soul of the city

CHRIS MIKULA , THE OTTAWA CITIZEN Simply walking by Sir Galahad will be harder to do once you know the story of the brave and selfless Henry Albert Harper.

verybody ignores Sir Galahad. For one, to stop at Sir Galahad, a statue flip-flops take pictures of each other be- an hour I’ve been parked on a dedicated a century ago to the memory neath the famous cross-country runner’s Ebench at the corner of Metcalfe of Henry Albert Harper that occupies bronze legs, natural and artificial. A mid- and Wellington streets, watching early prime real estate on Wellington in front dle-aged couple in shorts and sun hats morning strollers, office workers and of a Parliament Hill gate. follow suit. Another young couple reads tourists. The tourists are easy to spot in Nobody does. Instead, they seem to the plaque about the young man’s at- their gaudy clothing and thick-soled prefer the Terry Fox statue in the plaza. tempt in 1980 to run across Canada to shoes. I keep waiting for someone, any- A couple of Chinese girls in shorts and raise awareness about cancer.

2 As I walked the length of the granite I had a similar experience at the wall,touching the inscribed names, Vimy Memorial in France,where catching my reflection in the the names of thousands of polished stone,I couldn’t help Canadian soldiers are carved. but feel loss and sorrow even though Imagining those young men I lost no relatives or friends clawing their way up a muddy slope to the Vietnam war. under the hail of enemy fire,well, I don’t know how anyone wouldn’t feel a lump in their throat.

VIETNAM MEMORIAL CHIP SOMODEVILLA, GETTY IMAGES VIMY MEMORIAL WAYNE CUDDINGTON, THE OTTAWA CITIZEN

Obscurely, I’m disappointed. In the em about King Arthur and his knights, particular events, ideas, individuals or spring of 1976, during my first visit to Ot- carved into the granite pedestal: “If I lose groups of persons,” as geographer tawa, a friend took me on the obligatory myself I save myself.” Wilbur Zelinsky put it — are built to im- tour of Parliament Hill. We strolled along Of course, I would learn more about pinge on our consciousness, to make us Wellington Street to Bank Street and the Harper Memorial years later after I remember and, presumably, think about then on to Parliament Hill, following the moved to Ottawa — how, for instance, a particular historical event or person or curve of the driveway in front of the the statue of Sir Galahad, the chivalrous situation. House of Commons and past the Senate, knight of Arthurian legend, was chosen But as the novelist Robert Musil once emerging on Wellington with the Na- by his close friend, William Lyon observed, “There is nothing in the world tional War Memorial on our left at the Mackenzie King, the future prime min- as invisible as monuments.” We erect top of Elgin Street. We were heading that ister, and was modelled on George Fred- them to be seen, to attract attention; yet, way when I spotted the statue of Sir erick Watts’s famous painting, Sir Gala- at the same time, “something has im- Galahad farther up the sidewalk on my had. But it was the image of Sir Galahad pregnated them against attention. Like a right. — not the statues of prime ministers or drop of water on an oilskin, attention I’ve always been an inveterate reader the Parliament Buildings — that lingered runs down them without stopping for a of plaques, a compulsive inspector of in my memory long after my first visit to moment.” monuments. Sir Galahad struck me as the capital. Does familiarity breed complacency? oddly out of place — the bronze figure Do we lose sight of what is before our of a young man wrapped in a wind- THE PAST IS PRESENT eyes? Geographers argue that the prob- whipped cloak, sword in one hand, So now, on another day 33 years later, lem with monuments is that we tend to standing on a granite block, looking up it seems appropriate to begin a “pilgrim- ignore statues and other commemorative into the sky, dreamily unaware he’s about age” of Ottawa’s monuments with the artifacts because they become part of the to fall into traffic if he takes a step for- statue that first captured my imagination. unconscious background to our lives. We ward. I had to investigate. Living in Ottawa, you become so used see them but we are no longer con- And so I had my introduction to Henry to the presence of monuments — the sciously aware of their presence, and, Albert Harper, a young civil servant who, Peacekeeping Monument on Sussex Dri- hence, we become detached from the as the plaque relates, drowned in his 28th ve or the Human Rights monument in purpose they are intended to serve. year trying to save Miss Bessie Blair front of City Hall on Elgin Street, for ex- This series is a response to complacen- when the young woman fell through the ample — that you no longer really see cy, a field guide for the recovery of a ice on the Ottawa River on Dec. 6, 1901. them. It’s a paradoxical situation. Monu- communal spirit. I am out to discover, or, I read the line from Idylls of the King: ments — objects whose function “is to more precisely, reclaim, the soul of the The Holy Grail, Lord Tennyson’s epic po- celebrate or perpetuate the memory of city.

3 The spirit of a community, its self-un- in France, where the names of thousands derstanding, is revealed, in part at least, There is no grand Mall of Canadian soldiers posted missing and in its artifacts. Museums and galleries, in the national capital, presumed dead are carved into its mas- memorials and monuments, statues and sive ramparts. Looking across the Douai plaques; they all reflect the ideas that no Trafalgar Square, Plain, imagining those young men claw- give meaning and purpose to a place. no Arc de Triomphe. ing their way up a muddy slope under Hence, my walking tour of Ottawa’s the hail of enemy fire, well, I don’t know monuments and statues constitutes an What does this say how anyone wouldn’t feel a lump in their attempt to tap the animating idea, the throat. psyche, of the nation’s capital. about Ottawa? Not all monuments produce an emo- tional response, of course, but, some- WHERE DID WE COME FROM? times, with a bit of imagination and a I don’t think anybody would regard sense of historical empathy, a monument Ottawa as a monumental city, at least in can provide a sense of connection with the same way as, say, London, Washing- what’s gone before you. In Paris, for ex- ton or Paris. London probably has more ample, I long ago adopted — I adopt statues than any city in the world. Kings monuments in most cities I visit — the and queens, soldiers and politicians, po- statue of Marshal Ney, the general who ets and artists, explorers and educators, defended Napoleon’s army during the re- villains and heroes; you’ll find them en- treat from Moscow in 1812. He stands sconced on a pedestal somewhere in the waving a sword beneath the chestnut maze of London’s streets and parks. trees at the corner of boulevards St- Washington, too, displays a monumen- Michel and Montparnasse. I like to ad- tal mindset in that grand view down the mire him from the nearby terrace of Mall from the dome of Capital Hill to the Closerie des Lilas, imagining, as I sip my shining pillars of the Lincoln Memorial. café au lait, the ebb and flow of ignorant What about Ottawa? Few would dis- armies across Europe and how all that pute that Canada’s national capital is clashing produced the modern world, for more modest in its monumental display. good and ill. There is no grand Mall, no Trafalgar The point is this: To be consciously Square, and no Arc de Triomphe. What aware of a monument, to attend to its does this say about the city in both its lo- “space,” is to realize the past can be re- cal identity and its place as a national ternal physical world in which we act. claimed in the present, at least imagina- capital? Do our monuments demonstrate We might ignore them as we pursue our tively, and that it is possible to connect an imaginative response to history or an everyday lives, but that does not mean to the spirit of the past through the pres- inchoate confusion regarding our collec- they have no hold on us. Their presence ence of a physical object. Thus, monu- tive past? Do they reflect an expansive — and their poignant power — remains ments can be a means by which we tie national vision or the poverty of in our consciousness whether or not together the threads of our worldly ex- parochialism? Such questions form the we pay attention. Landscape becomes perience, symbolic objects through “spiritual” backdrop to my walks. memoryscape because monuments con- which we create order amidst the ca- Addressing those questions, however, flate communal and personal experi- cophony of events, vehicles for preserv- also requires the recognition that mon- ence. ing our haphazard experience, commu- uments are more than artifacts of histor- The most powerful example I’ve expe- nal and personal, against the oblivion of ical reference, reminders of the past, al- rienced of this is the Vietnam Memorial time. though they are that, too. Statues, in Washington, D.C. I imagine someone plaques, memorials, cenotaphs; they are of the Great War generation felt the same REMEMBERING HENRY HARPER stories in stone and bronze. They tell in about the National War Memorial in Ott- Does Sir Galahad serve this purpose? symbolic language who we are and awa. For my generation, though, whether I like to think so. My disappointment at where we came from. As scholar John American or Canadian, the Vietnam the lack of attention to Sir Galahad is, no Roberts wrote in a 1999 study, monu- Memorial exerts a powerful claim on the doubt, rooted in nostalgia for my youth- ments are “one of the most tangible im- psyche. When I approached the monu- ful visit to Ottawa. Harper’s sacrifice was prints that a person or group can leave ment on my first visit several years ago, I so long ago it no longer forms part of the on the physical landscape.” In this re- saw a cut in the earth and what appeared communal memory for more recent gen- gard, monuments are “deeply social,” to be an inconsequential black wall erations. Someday the events that still at- and building a monument is a matter of ahead. But as I came closer and then tract attention to the Terry Fox statue — “making thoughts and ideas into con- walked along the length of the granite the young man’s attempt nearly 30 years crete form.” wall, touching the inscribed names, ago to run across Canada in aid of can- In this sense, monuments possess a catching my own reflection in the pol- cer research — will also fade from public psychological resonance as well as a ished stone, I couldn’t help but feel loss memory. But the Fox statue, like that of physical presence. Indeed, whether or and sorrow even though I lost no rela- Harper’s, will be here to remind those not we are consciously aware of it, the tives or friends to that war. Judging by who attend to it that courage and hero- monument’s seeming permanence in the the behaviour of others around me — ism are always values to be honoured, landscape establishes a presence, a placing flowers, rubbing a finger across a and remembered. space, in our minds, thereby fostering the name, in tears or in silence — I wasn’t I flip through my notebook to read potential for identity between ourselves the only one affected by the pathos of the things I’ve learned about Henry Harper. I and the communal memory that it seeks place. find a quotation from a 1904 memoir to perpetuate. Monuments connect the I had a similar experience many years Mackenzie King wrote on behalf of his inner world of our psyches with the ex- ago during a visit to the Vimy Memorial dead friend.

4 ter night on the Ottawa River duty called to Bert Harper. Knowing that it was al- most certain death, he went into the black water to try to save the girl.” Nor is there much doubt that King was, in Stacey’s words, “the moving spirit” to es- tablish a monument to his friend. Four years after Harper’s death, on Nov. 18, 1905, sculptor Ernest Wise Keyser’s statue of Sir Galahad was un- veiled at the head of Metcalfe Street (the location in large part thanks to King’s lobbying). Thousands of Ottawa’s 60,000 citizens attended the unveiling, includ- ing the Governor General, Lord Grey. “As the King’s representative unveiled the monument; at that moment the sun came out from behind a cloud,” the Morning Citizen reported on Nov. 20, 1905. Prime Minister Wilfrid Laurier ac- cepted the statue on behalf of the nation. “The stranger to our city will pause as he passes the monument and wonder what deed called for this erection,” he said in a speech. “He will be told of the noble act of sacrifice, of a life given in effort to save another.” Canadians, Laurier concluded, “shall look upon this memorial as a na- tional monument in every sense of the word.” That hopeful sentiment has obviously In the memoir, King reveals that the I watch people walk past Sir faded with time, I think, as people walk choice of Tennyson’s line for the inscrip- past Sir Galahad with nary a glance. I tion was more than sentimentality. “The Galahad with nary a glance. know I shouldn’t begrudge the greater character of Harper’s act was sufficient attention to Fox’s statue. He, too, de- in itself to suggest ‘Sir Galahad’ as a sub- I shouldn’t begrudge the serves remembrance. Yet, I do wish ject suitable for a memorial of this kind, someone would remember Henry Harp- but the choice had, in fact, a more inti- greater attention to Terry er. mate association with Harper himself. Fox’s statue.He,too,was a Then it occurs to me: that’s my job. Hanging on the wall above the desk in That’s the point of this series. I’m walk- his study was a carbon reproduction of hero deserving of ing to recall the communal spirit of the Watts’ painting. He had placed it there nation’s capital as reflected in its monu- himself, and often, in speaking of it to remembrance.Yet,I also ments, looking to find the city’s psyche others, had remarked, ‘There is my ideal by losing myself among its statuary. knight!’ ” wish someone would I leave my bench and walk across Harper and King had shared a two- Wellington Street, patting Sir Galahad’s bedroom apartment at 202 Maria St. for remember Henry Harper. bronze toe as I head for Parliament Hill. about a year before Harper’s death. King But then it occurs to me: was the editor of the Labour Gazette, and Robert Sibley is a senior writer for the he’d hired Harper, a journalist whom that’s my job. Citizen. he’d known at the University of Toronto where they were students, as associate editor. Historian C.P. Stacey says the maiden speech as an MP in the House of SOURCES men were bound together by shared ide- Common. Later in his diary, he wrote: alism. “We can strive together after an “Before going to the House at eight, I put ■ McKenzie King, The Secret of earnest Christian manhood seeking to 10 little white roses on the base of the Heroism: A Memoir of Henry Albert inspire in each other what is most noble Harper Monument. It was beautiful to Harper, 1919 edition. and to lop off the sins and shortcomings leave (them) there to look at when I ■ John Roberts, Nation-building and which so easily beset us,” King wrote in came out. It was in thinking before the Monumentalization in the his diary in 1900. debate that I was alone — not a single Contemporary Capital, M.A. The future prime minister never for- soul to really share a discussion with, or Thesis, Carleton University, 1999. got his friend. On Dec. 6, 1944, 43 years to share a supreme hour of one’s life with after Harper drowned, King would note — that I was suddenly reminded it was ■ C.P. Stacey, A Very Double Life: The “the anniversary of Harper’s death” in the anniversary of Bert’s death, and I Private World of Mackenzie King, 1976. his diary. A more evocative remem- knew that the loss was irreparable.” ■ Wilbur Zelinsky, Nation into State: brance was recorded Dec. 6, 1909. In the Harper certainly deserved remem- The Shifting Symbolic Foundations of evening, King delivered his long-delayed brance. As Stacey puts it, “On that win- American Nationalism, 1988.

5 OUR STORIES IN STONE PART 2 Long to reign over us

Some Ottawans were upset at the realism with which the king of beasts was portrayed. PHOTOS BY CHRIS MIKULA, THE OTTAWA CITIZEN Along came a In 1901, a statue of Queen Victoria was unveiled welder to with much pomp and ceremony on a knoll on the west side render the lion of Centre Block. It is there still, a constant reminder of Canada’s anatomically monarchist attachments. corrected. Monuments celebrate happy, glorious ties between crown and city

BY ROBERT SIBLEY Ottawa was a brawling frontier town of tachments. a few thousand. Its biggest claim to fame Today’s walk is devoted to these at- f statues could talk, the regal figure — apart from being a major source of tachments of Crown and city, at least as standing on Parliament Hill could lumber for the British navy — was its represented on Parliament Hill. The Hill speak volumes about Ottawa’s ties muddy streets. Still, 40 years later, Ot- contains three monuments commemo- to British royalty. tawa was a bit less muddy, and citizens rating the royal presence — the statue of I In 1857, Queen Victoria ended sev- wanted to show their appreciation for Queen Victoria, one of Queen Elizabeth eral years of acrimony among colonial the Queen’s decision. The year 1897 II, and, sadly neglected, a block of mar- Canadians by selecting Ottawa as the marked the 60th year of Victoria’s reign, ble that was the cornerstone of the origi- new capital of the united Province of and a statue was proposed to mark the nal Parliament Building. Canada. Many were appalled at the occasion. I park myself on a bench to admire Queen’s choice. A British MP referred Duly sculpted by Louis-Philippe Queen Victoria, resplendent in crown, sarcastically to the town as “Westmin- Hébert, it was unveiled in 1901 with much sceptre and robes of state, her head held ster in the wilderness.” An American pomp and ceremony on a knoll on the high as she gazes across the city she newspaper was sardonic in its approval, west side of the Centre Block, home to the plucked from obscurity. On the pedestal opining that the “invaders would in- House of Commons and the Senate. It is below the Queen stands a large muscular evitably be lost in the woods trying to there still, on a granite pedestal surround- lion, a “vigilant guardian of the flag, ter- find it.” ed by trees, benches and pathways, a con- ritorial dominion and national honours,” Such skepticism was not unreasonable. stant reminder of Canada’s monarchist at- as Hébert put it at the time. PHOTOS BY CHRIS MIKULA , THE OTTAWA CITIZEN The statue of Queen Elizabeth II was first proposed in 1987 to mark both the Queen's 40th year as Canada’s monarch and Canada's 125th year as a nation.

A young jogger stops to rest on a near- gorical symbol of Canada. She’s dressed by bench, checking the pulse in her neck in peasant-like clothing with a gorget of with her fingers. A middle-aged Chinese armour around her neck. On her head is a couple, cameras dangling around their mural crown with the coats of arms of necks, walk up one of the paths. They the provinces. take pictures of each other in front of the The woman seems unbalanced on her monument, and spend a few moments feet. She looks up at the Queen, her right looking up at the Queen. arm extended to place a laurel wreath at Perhaps they, like myself, admire the royal feet, her left arm extended be- Hébert’s handiwork: the intricate realism hind as if to keep her balance. I see what of the creases and folds of the Queen’s the authors of a 1986 National Capital robes, the fierce-faced lion with its claws Commission brochure on the Parliament unsheathed. Hill statues meant when they wrote: There is a sad story about the lion. Af- “Wind-blown and unsteady, she is per- ter it was unveiled, some Ottawans of del- haps an emblem of a still uncertain na- icate sensibility were upset at the realism tion.” with which the king of beasts was por- After saying goodbye to Queen Victo- trayed. A sensitive bureaucrat ordered ria, I troop along the driveway that curves the alteration of offending parts. Along around the back of the Centre Block to came a welder to render the lion anatom- my favourite “monument” on the Hill — ically corrected. a green-stained, weather-worn block of Next to the sopranoed lion is the white marble cut more than a century- draped figure of a young woman, an alle- and-a-half ago from a quarry along the

2 4.3 metres long and 1.5 metres wide. It cost $600,000. And, finally, it’s only the second statue of a monarch memorial- ized on Parliament Hill — compared to 15 politicians — and, apparently, is the first equestrian statue anywhere of Her Majesty. British Columbia artist Jack Harman and his son Stephen sculpted the monu- ment of the Queen astride the RCMP horse Centenial — a gift to Her Majesty to mark the Mounties’ centennial in 1973. (The only reason I could find for the horse’s name being deliberately mis- spelled — one “n” instead of two — was so neither horse nor Queen would be as- sociated with 100 years ago, or some such bureaucratic silliness.) There is a stillness to the monument, a kind of quiet and timeless solidity. Yet, at the same time, it possesses a dynamic quality, a sense of movement. The Queen holds the reins loosely but firmly. The horse’s right foreleg is raised as if moving forward. There’s a playful swish in the thick tail. I can pick out the details of a crown and shield on the saddle straps and harness and the buttons on the Queen’s cape with their royal insignia. She looks, well, regal and commanding, gazing into The cornerstone of Parliament: In chiselled letters worn by time: ‘Laid by Albert the distance. Edward Prince of Wales on the first day of September MDCCCLX.’ The statue was first proposed in 1987 by Bill Tupper, the former Tory MP for upper Ottawa River valley. It is the origi- Nepean-Carleton, to mark both the nal cornerstone of Parliament, and, to my Queen’s 40th year as Canada’s monarch mind, a potent symbol of the city’s British and Canada’s 125th year as a nation. Sur- heritage. prisingly, perhaps, Tupper’s private mem- The first thread of that bond was wo- ber’s bill passed unanimously in the ven nearly 150 years ago when the Prince House of Commons and Senate. Of of Wales visited Ottawa. course, there were a few carpers — closet It had been three years since the republicans, no doubt — who, in the prince’s mother picked Ottawa to be the words of one curmudgeonly cynic, capital. Her 19-year-old son, the future thought the statue was “really useless.” A King Edward VII, was shipped over to ce- New Democratic MP, Rod Laporte, as- ment her decision. It was the first official sumed he was speaking for ordinary royal visit to Canada. Canadians when he was quoted as saying, Chiselled on the stone’s face: “This cor- “It’s fine to have a statue of the Queen. It nerstone of the building destined to re- has some value but, with the economic ceive the Legislature of Canada was laid condition of the country, it’s poor timing.” by Albert Edward Prince of Wales on the I prefer the attitude of former York- first day of September MDCCCLX” — Simcoe Tory MP John Cole, who defend- Saturday, Sept. 1, 1860, to be precise. Some rededicated the cornerstone for the new ed the statue’s symbolic value. “There is a of the lettering has worn away. Parliament building that was built after lot of tradition here,” he said. It seems The next major royal visit wasn’t until the original structure burned to the most Ottawans agreed. Thousands gath- 1901, when the Duke and Duchess of ground earlier in the year — the same ered on Parliament Hill on June 30, 1992, Cornwall and York — later King George stone his brother Edward had laid 56 to cheer the Queen as she tugged on a V and Queen Mary — came to town. Ot- years earlier. lanyard to unveil the statue. tawa’s 60,000 citizens pulled out all the It’s a short stroll from the cornerstone I like the idea that this monument of stops, with at least half the city’s popu- to the northeast lawn between the Cen- Queen Elizabeth, like that of her great- lace gathering on Parliament Hill on Sept. tre Block and the East Block where I find great-grandmother on the other side of 21 to cheer as the duke unveiled the statue the statue of Queen Elizabeth II on horse- the Hill, will be here long after our con- of Queen Victoria, who had died in Janu- back. I take a seat on a bench in the shade temporary concerns — billions bailing ary of that year. of a large maple to study the monument out bankrupt car companies, for instance Fifteen years later, on the “first day of as I flip through my research notes. — have been forgotten, reminding us of September MDCCCCXVI (Sept. 1, 1916),” Here are a few facts: The bronze statue our more meaningful connections. 1 as an additional inscription relates, is four metres tall and 1 ⁄2 times larger Prince Arthur, the Duke of Connaught than life. It weighs 1,225 kilograms. It sits Robert Sibley is a senior writer for the and the then governor general of Canada, on a granite base that is 3.7 metres high, Citizen.

3 OUR STORIES IN STONE PART 3 Hail to The Chief

CHRIS MIKULA, THE OTTAWA CITIZEN John George Diefenbaker, the thirteenth prime minister of Canada. Staring up at his Parliament Hill statue, a dim boyhood memory returns. On Parliament Hill: Nation-builders and a parade of prime ministers

BY ROBERT SIBLEY propriate to begin my tour of Parliament next to that of Queen Victoria’s monu- Hill’s monuments with The Chief. Lo- ment, a fitting spot for a staunch monar- he scowling brow, the heavy cated on the northwest corner of the Hill chist. Instead, he was located downhill jowls, the fierce gaze — such a between the Centre Block, which houses from the Queen. visage could only be that of the House of Commons and the Senate, Lester Pearson’s statue, unveiled in John George Diefenbaker, the and the West Block, Diefenbaker is one 1990, got the right-hand spot, a hundred T thirteenth prime minister of of seven former prime ministers and five metres or so behind and above Diefen- Canada. Staring up at his Parliament Hill Fathers of Confederation commemorat- baker’s. statue, a dim boyhood memory returns. ed on the Hill. Danek Mozdzenski’s bronze of Pear- It was July of 1961, as I recall, and Diefenbaker, I suspect, would be son, the prime minister from 1963 to Diefenbaker was visiting Inuvik, N.W.T., pleased with his statue although I doubt 1968, has him sitting cross-legged in a where my family lived at the time. My fa- he’d appreciate its location. Sculptor Leo chair, looking neat and natty in a suit and ther and other townspeople had gath- Mol depicts Diefenbaker in a double- — Pearson’s sartorial trademark — a ered to watch Diefenbaker unveil a mon- breasted suit, standing confident and de- bowtie. I think he looks a tad arrogant at ument marking the town’s founding five termined. His right hand holds the Bill of being able to look down on his old rival. years earlier. Years later I would learn Rights, the document he produced in But maybe that’s just partisan prejudice the prime minister spoke of the need for 1960. There’s a fierce look in his eyes, as on my part. I try to be inclusive, remem- a new national vision, but at the time it if he’s about to re-engage the Great Flag bering Pearson’s legacy: national health became part of our family lore that debate of 1964 and give the Liberals an- care, the pension plan and the Maple Diefenbaker had stopped to shake my fa- other rhetorical thrashing for undermin- Leaf flag. The first two, OK, but I’ll never ther’s hand when he walked through the ing Canada’s British heritage. forgive him for replacing the Red Ensign crowd after the unveiling. I’d read that some thought had been with the Liberal party’s colours, other- Today, near 50 years later, it seems ap- given to locating Diefenbaker’s statue wise known as the Maple Leaf flag. CHRIS MIKULA , THE OTTAWA CITIZEN The Women are Persons “tea party” monument honours five women who challenged the Supreme Court.

I whack my knuckle on the toe of Pear- seems. The allegorical figure of Probity came a passionate advocate of Confed- son’s over-sized brogue as I leave. It sits at the base of the monument. She eration. During the 1860s, he spoke out makes a hollow sound. holds her right hand over her heart while against the Fenians, a group of Irish ■ a shield next to her is engraved with Americans who wanted the United words you’re not likely to see on the States to invade Canada. His hostility Walking toward to the Centre Block, tombstone of a modern-day politician: may have led to his assassination outside past Queen Victoria’s statue, I follow the “Duty was his Law and Conscience his his Sparks Street residence on April 7, short driveway that curves behind the Ruler.” 1868. McGee’s statue, erected in 1922, building. A chain of statuary lines the The third statue, again only a short dis- shows him in “the employment of his or- road — some of Canada’s founders. tance along the driveway, is of George atory in the cause of Confederation,” as There’s George-Etienne Cartier, the Brown. As the editor of the Toronto sculptor George William Hill put it. francophone Father of Confederation, Globe, he campaigned for Confederation The monument memorializing who was largely responsible for bringing in 1867. But in 1880, an employee he’d Robert Baldwin and Louis-Hippolyte Quebec into the federation. His statue fired shot Brown outside his office. The Lafontaine also depicts a conversation. was the first on the Hill in 1885. Sculpted statue depicts Brown as an aggressive The two political reformers sought re- by Louis-Philippe Hébert, who also did debater. Below on the pedestal is the alle- sponsible government for Lower and the Queen Victoria statue, it depicts gorical figure of a husky young man pro- Upper Canada in the years before Con- Cartier giving a public speech. Next to tecting a ballot box inscribed with the federation. The monument, by sculptor him is a lectern draped with a scroll words: “Government by the people, free Walter Seymour Allward — who also de- showing: “Constitution of 1867. Le Gou- institutions, religious liberty and equality, signed the Vimy Ridge Memorial in vernement est d’opinion que la Confédera- and unity and progress of Confedera- France — was erected in 1914, and shows tion est nécessaire.” tion.” them in a quiet colloquy, perhaps, as au- A few metres along the driveway, I find Thomas D’Arcy McGee is Canada’s thor Terry Guernsey writes in Statues on Alexander Mackenzie, the first Liberal only political assassination to date. A Parliament Hill, “discussing one of the prime minister, who held office from gifted orator, journalist and poet, the documents on responsible government.” 1873 to 1878. A sober and upright man, it Irishman came to Canada in 1857 and be- ■

2 I take my lunch with John A. Mac- looks more belligerent than forceful. gate, I turn right down Wellington Street donald, Canada’s first prime minister, Oddly enough, you can see a more toward Bank Street. On the southwest sitting in the shade of a maple tree near positive side of King’s character in the side of West Block, where many of the his statue on the northeast corner of the monument to the man he succeeded, members of Parliament have their of- Hill, between the Centre Block and the Wilfrid Laurier, the prime minister fices, I find my final prime ministerial East Block. It’s an appropriate spot — his from 1896 to 1911. In 1922, King, as the statue. Confederation colleague, George-Eti- new Liberal prime minister, approved a Robert Borden was prime minister enne Cartier, stands on the opposite side statue of his predecessor for Parliament from 1911 to 1920, leading Canada through of the Hill. Hill. the First World War. His statue, unveiled Within four years of Macdonald’s Five years later, in 1927, the 60th an- in 1957, shows him in a greatcoat that re- death in 1891, public monuments had niversary of Confederation, Joseph-Emile calls the wartime years. been erected in five Canadian cities, as Brunet’s elegant and dignified bronze of He stands firm and resolute — “the well as in London, England. It wasn’t un- Laurier — dressed in a tailored suit and fighting pose,” sculptor Frances Loring til Dominion Day, July 1, 1895, that Mac- overcoat — was unveiled on the south- called it. In his left hand, Borden holds a donald’s statue was unveiled in the na- east corner of the Parliament grounds scroll representing the document he car- tion’s capital. overlooking Confederation Square. It’s a ried to the Paris Peace Conference in 1919, It is a splendid statue, capturing Mac- lovely statue, and well located. The where — as historians say — Canada took donald’s spiritedness and quickness of smooth lines and hand-on-hip pose cap- its place as a truly sovereign nation. mind. The sculptor, Louis-Philippe ture Laurier’s courtly intelligence. He also ensured the passage of the Hébert, depicts him in a meditative pose, As Guernsey observes, King wanted Women’s Franchise Act, giving women papers in one hand, glasses in another, Laurier’s statue to be what those ap- the right to vote in federal elections. head turned to one side as if paused in proaching Parliament first saw after ar- Looking up at Borden’s craggy face, he thought. Perhaps he’s wondering riving in the capital by train at Union Sta- reminds me of Diefenbaker, the rare kind whether Confederation will work for any tion (now the Government Conference of politician who delivered on his com- length of time. At his feet lies a pile of Centre at Wellington Street and Colonel mitments, and whose hand you’d be parchment with the words “Consolida- By Drive). Besides, he’d promised the proud to shake. tion of British North America.” spot to Laurier during one of their regu- The statue of William Lyon Macken- lar walks. Robert Sibley is a senior writer for The zie King, who served as prime minister Leaving Laurier by the small eastern Citizen. for 22 years — 1921-1926, 1926-1930, and 1935-1948 — is nearby. Lunch done, I wander over. These persons ought to move down the street King may have acquired a reputation as a bland and colourless politician, but sculptor Raoul Hunter, in deciding how There is also another “political” monument As a side benefit, the statue of former to portray King’s lengthy career, chose on the Hill — the Women are Persons “Tea prime minister Louis St-Laurent, which “to emphasize King’s forcefulness of Party” monument — that is, arguably, out of currently occupies a corner of the courthouse character,” writes Guernsey. Hunter’s place. The Persons monument, stuck lawn, could be moved to Parliament Hill, statue shows King in a stiff, armour-like incongruously between the statues of Queen where it rightfully belongs. overcoat, with a suffer-no-fools look on Elizabeth II and Mackenzie King, honours the his face. Considering how long King sur- five Alberta women — Irene Parlby, Louise vived — and thrived — in public life, that McKinney, Nellie McClung, Emily Murphy, and is probably an accurate psychological Henrietta Muir Edwards — who, in 1929, won portrait, at least to some degree. a ruling from the British Privy Council, then Still, it seems to me other aspects of the highest court of appeal in the Empire, that the man’s character were forgotten. King overturned an earlier silly decision of the may have appeared diffident in public, as Supreme Court of Canada. biographers claim, but he was also the A year earlier, the Supreme Court had kind of man who laid 10 white roses at ruled that women were not eligible to the Sir Galahad monument to his friend Senate appointments because they were Henry Harper before entering the House not “qualified persons.” Surely the best of Commons to deliver his maiden place for the Persons monument is the front speech. Hunter’s statue, unveiled in 1967, lawn of the Supreme Court, where it would captures none of this inner spirit in cast- be a constant reminder to the Supremos to ing King in a tight-buttoned pose. He keep their hubris in check.

3 OUR STORIES IN STONE PART 4 Long to be gazed upon

CHRIS MIKULA, THE OTTAWA CITIZEN The National Aboriginal Veterans Monument memorializes native Canadians who fought in the First and Second World Wars and the Korean War. Portraits in bronze honour duty, loyalty and love of country BY ROBERT SIBLEY The statue — a guardsman standing in the drill hall waiting for my son to con- mournful repose with his hands clasped clude an evening’s cadet training. he afternoon of Nov. 1, 1888, was on the butt of a rifle — is no longer in Studying the mournful soldier and the unusually mild for Ottawa. Major’s Hill Park. Today you find it, fit- bronze medallion portraits of Rogers and While that might help account tingly enough, in front of the Cartier Osgoode, I imagine that balmy day more for the large crowd that gathered Square Drill Hall, just off Queen Eliza- than 120 years ago, and what it might Tin Major’s Hill Park that day, beth Driveway and Laurier Avenue. The have meant for Ottawans. most no doubt were there to witness a drill hall is home to the Cameron High- A brochure published in 1889, titled ceremony that was a rarity at this point landers of Ottawa and Foot Guards regi- Ceremony of Unveiling, describes the in the city’s history. ments. pomp and circumstance. At precisely 2:30 p.m., Lord Stanley of Which is where I find myself at the “The fine weather and the unusual Preston, the Governor General of Cana- end of another day stalking Ottawa’s character of the ceremony — happily da, unveiled a monument that had cap- monuments. one almost unknown to Canadian histo- tured the empathy and imagination of I’d spent the day pondering monu- ry — attracted thousands of spectators Ottawans when it was first proposed a ments along Elgin Street — from the bust to the spot … Spectators were massed in couple of years earlier — the Sharp- of a South American hero in Minto Park front, in rear, all around, and they gath- shooters’ statue commemorating Pte. to the statuary in Confederation Park ered on every coign of vantage, not ex- John Rogers and William Osgoode, and much in between. cepting Parliament Hill, from which an members of the Governor General’s Foot The Sharpshooters’ memorial, sculpt- excellent view could be obtained … The Guards killed at the Battle of Cut Knife ed by Percy Wood, seemed a fitting place gay uniforms and glittering bayonets of Hill during the 1885 Riel Rebellion. to stop. I’d spent many evenings outside the military lent animation to the scene.” The style might seem gle memorializing the florid, but it’s the sentiment thousands of native Cana- we probably find most dians who fought in the strange. Words such as du- First and Second World ty, loyalty and love of coun- Wars and the Korean War; try fill the speeches, with- the Polish Home Army out self-consciousness, monument — a limestone much less irony. tablet with a 26-name Adolphe Caron, the min- plaque — honouring the ister of militia, was ap- “valiant Canadian airmen plauded when he said, “Let who fell over Poland while every Canadian remember flying support missions that when her sons do their during World War II;” the duty, Canada will place Monument to Canadian them in the list of heroes Fallen, dedicated to the who have won a right to 30,000 soldiers, sailors and monuments, and whose airmen who served in Ko- memory deserves to be rea between 1950 and 1957; gratefully cherished by and the South African War those who sincerely love Memorial, commemorating their country.” those who fought in the So, too, was the governor Boer War between 1899 general. and 1902. “The memorial to these I read through the list of men will stand up here to Boer War dead — Trooper public view, long to be G. Bradley, Pte. E. DesLau- gazed upon I hope, with riers, Pte. W.J. Leslie, Sgt. feelings of respect. It repre- W.H. Rea, to name a few — sents those who cheerfully before finding a bench came forward in the service from which I could admire of their country, who were sculptor Hamilton Mac- loyal to their Queen, true to Carthy’s statue. I liked the their colours, and ‘faithful detail — everything from even unto death’.” the rifle with its fixed bay- I imagine similar senti- onet and the puttees ments apply in one degree wrapped around the legs to or another to many of the the mustachioed soldier monuments and statues I’d holding his pith helmet encountered today. aloft in exuberance at mili- There was the mutton- tary victory. chopped bust of General The Liberal government José de San Martin in of the day wouldn’t finance ‘Let every Canadian Minto Park, the Argen- a monument for the Boer remember that when tinean who had, as the in- War soldiers because her sons do their duty, scription said, “ensured Ar- Canada was not an “offi- Canada will place them gentine independence” and cial” participant. Instead, in the list of heroes who then “crossed the Andes as the inscription reads, it have won a right to and liberated Chile and Pe- was paid for in pennies monuments,’ the ru.” gathered by “30,000 chil- minister of militia said Heading for Confedera- dren of Ottawa and adjoin- at the 1888 unveiling of tion Park, I detoured ing counties.” the Sharpshooters’ through City Hall to look at Walking across Laurier statue. the model of the Ottawa Avenue to Cartier Square Firefighters memorial — Drill Hall and my last mon- two firefighters in action, ument of the day, it occurs one with a hose and the to me that you’d be vilified other carrying a child — nowadays for enlisting chil- that is to be installed in Fes- dren in such a patriotic en- tival Plaza, along Laurier terprise, but that, perhaps, Avenue adjacent to City says more about our lack of Hall. historical sensibility than it The walkway of Confed- does about the militarism eration Park takes in the of our forefathers. National Aboriginal Veter- ans Monument, its symbol- Robert Sibley is a senior ic bear, wolf and soaring ea- writer for the Citizen.

CHRIS MIKULA , THE OTTAWA CITIZEN

2 OUR STORIES IN STONE PART 5 Concrete reasoning

PHOTOS BY CHRIS MIKULA, THE OTTAWA CITIZEN David Ruben-Piqtoukun’s Lost Child consists of sandstone blocks — one tall rectangular stone surrounded by shorter pieces — set in a bed of stone. The piece is intended to evoke the artist’s experience as a child wandering lost among the looming buildings of a city. To my mind, a statue shouldn’t tell you what to think

BY ROBERT SIBLEY Commission brochure, the “triumph over the feeling of alienation in the ur- t’s with a sense of relief that I take a banized world.” The tallest stone sym- break in the west courtyard in front bolizes a “sentinel, its voice shining as it of City Hall. After the noise and calls out,” while the arrangement of noxiousness of Elgin Street, the stones, like a traditional Inuit cairn, I courtyard provides a zone of tran- marks a spot where people can rest and quility. It also offers a monument I like. re-orient themselves. David Ruben-Piqtoukun’s Lost Child And so I do. I’d spent the morning consists of sandstone blocks — one tall along Elgin Street, walking through rectangular stone surrounded by short- Minto Park and Confederation Park and er pieces — set in a bed of stone. The around City Hall in my continuing explo- piece is intended to evoke the artist’s ex- ration of Ottawa’s monuments. I’d visit- perience as a child wandering lost ed Minto Park to see the sombre, grave- among the looming buildings of a city. As like stones of Enclave, the Women’s Mon- Ruben-Piqtoukun says on a plaque at- ument Against Violence. I’d studied the tached to the monument: “We have all ‘All human beings are born free and Dorothy O’Connell Monument to Anti- been lost at some point in our lives.” equal in dignity and rights,’ reads the poverty next to City Hill on Lisgar Street, The sculpture, then, represents, in the Canadian Tribute to Human Rights puzzled at what looked to me like a words of my handy National Capital monument. warped doughnut in red stone. I’d admired the soldierly statuary in Master’s thesis, Nation-building and Confederation Park. Artist Laura Ford’s Monumentalization in the Contemporary three “Nature Girls” — Stump Girl, Bush Capital. Girl and Conifer Girl — outside the Maybe so, but the rows of pillars re- British High Commission gave me a mind me of a parking garage without a laugh. roof. Here and there rectangular plac- But all along I knew I was avoiding the ards hang on the concrete slabs that form Canadian Tribute to Human Rights mon- the monument’s walls. They offer more ument near the Court House on the cor- abstractions — “Rights,” “Dignity,” ner of Elgin Street and Lisgar Avenue. Equality.” Not that I could read any of The monument has irritated me ever them; they were all in various aboriginal since it was unveiled in 1990. languages. I wonder how many of those I’m not fond of abstract monuments, who visited the monument knew native particularly ones that are supposed to languages, including aboriginals them- appeal to the public. I prefer traditional selves. statuary that reflects, even in an ideal- I doubt my reaction is what was in- ized form, real human experience. tended when the monument was pro- Some, of course, dislike “stiff brown posed in the 1980s. bronze figures and didactic plaques,” as In the words of a booklet published at one pundit puts it. But the inclination to the time: Tribute “will remind our lead- abstraction seems to me to betray an un- ers, sensitize our visitors, and teach our a response to the Holocaust and the hor- willingness to even attempt to make children that human rights are the cor- rors of the Nazi era. A Canadian diplo- sense of the chaotic realities of the mod- ner-stone of human community and that mat, John Humphrey, authored that dec- ern era. until the rights of all are respected none laration. Tribute on its own makes no ref- “The characteristic error of the mid- are secure.” erence to this historical connection be- dle-class intellectual of modern times is Another nice sentiment, but instead of tween Canada and the cause of human his tendency to abstractness and ab- eliciting an emotional response, the rights. Instead, the visitor is exhorted to soluteness, his reluctance to connect monument tells you what you’re sup- endorse abstract concepts. idea with fact, especially personal fact,” posed to think. Thus, despite its universal message of literary critic Lionel Trilling once stat- There’s nothing human with which to human rights, Tribute lacks a represen- ed. connect, nothing visual that might en- tative or figurative context that would That is the fundamental fault of this gender identification. Don’t get me foster an emotional connection to its monument. Its abstract style disconnects wrong. I don’t quarrel with the ideals the message. it from any historical particulars with monument expresses, but the way in In Roberts’ words, “Tribute will only be which you can identify, while its appeal which they are expressed. attractive to a certain number of people” to ideals of human rights allows banali- The monument was inspired by the because its abstract form “lacks the suf- ty — does any reasonable person oppose Solidarity labour movement in Poland in ficient bite needed to rouse (people) human rights? — disguised as profundity. the early 1980s. But other proponents, in- about the issues that it alludes to.” Abstract works that indulge in blatant cluding gays and lesbians, aboriginals, I guess that doesn’t include me. Still, I moral exhortation are particularly pa- francophones and women’s groups, try to find something positive. I make my tronizing. pushed for a more “universal commem- own procession back and forth between I approach Tribute from the front — or oration.” the pillars. Nothing. The concrete is cold what I assume to be the front — walking As John Roberts explains, the monu- and dead to the touch. The only reaction down Elgin Street and across Laurier Av- ment’s creation was based on the belief I get is from a bum — sorry, homeless enue. “that public art can make a statement person — huddled against one of the A polished plaque of red Manitoba and play a role in mobilizing citizens to columns. Cigarette butts and the detritus granite inscribed with a didactic state- awareness and action.” of a McDonald’s meal surround him. ment (in English and French, naturelle- The problem, Roberts acknowledges, “Something bothering you?” he asks. ment) confronts me: “All human beings is that while the monument might serve “Just studying the monument,” I say. are born free and equal in dignity and as “a place for collective focus and dis- “Don’t mind me.” rights.” sent in the struggle for rights,” there’s But clearly I’m intruding. With one last A fine sentiment, no doubt, but it stirs nothing that relates to specific events or circle, I depart — after all, he has his no instinctive emotional response unlike, meanings with which people can identi- rights — and make my way to the court- say, the larger-than-life human figures on ty. Indeed, you need the explanations on yard, where I find a table next to Ruben- the National War Memorial or a wall of nearby plaques to make Tribute accessi- Piqtoukun’s Lost Child. proper nouns like those at the Common- ble. Otherwise you need a degree in Why do I like this abstract piece and wealth Air Force Memorial on Green Is- modern art. Traditional monuments not the other? It reminds me of Zen rock land in Rideau Falls Park. might have information plaques, but they gardens in Japan. The conflation of stone, Beneath the granite plaque is a path- usually don’t need to explain what you’re geometry and setting induces contem- way between two rows of concrete supposed to feel or think. plation and reflection. But something columns. The monument’s creator, Melvin else, too. On impulse I walk to the monu- The artist’s intention, according to Charney, intended his aisle of pillars to ment and rub a hand across the lichen- scholar John Roberts, was to reflect the be “a path (that) traces a symbolic pro- flecked surface of the largest stone. The basilica-like interior of a church. The cession through a portal inscribed with sandstone feels warm, almost alive. aisle between the columns is “a repre- the words of the UN Universal Declara- sentation of a path of redemption,” he tion of Human Rights.” Robert Sibley is a senior writer for the writes in a 1999 Carleton University Maybe so, but the UN document was Citizen.

2 OUR STORIES IN STONE PART 6 Paying attention Whimsy, surprises and moments of reflection on Wellington Street

BY ROBERT SIBLEY

slot a toonie in the outstretched palm, glancing up and down Wellington Street to check if any- one is watching. There is no partic- I ular reason to feel self-conscious, but I do. I don’t usually give money to statues. This one, however, elicits such a re- sponse. Timothy Schmalz’s statue sits crossed-legged on the corner of Kent and Wellington streets, half-hidden among the tulips and daffodils that fill the planters in front of St. Andrew’s Pres- byterian Church. Perhaps half-hidden is the wrong word. The statue, entitled Whatsoever ..., is quite visible, but it surprises me. I’ve walked passed the old church many times, but for the life of me I couldn’t re- call noticing the hooded beggar. I guess I wasn’t paying attention. Statues are like that. We create them, plop them in some spot, and then forget them. It’s not that we no longer “see” them, but rather, we no longer pay atten- tion. They become a visual version of white noise, an unconscious backdrop to our lives. This notion has been with me all morning as I explore some of the monu- ments in and around Wellington Street. Think of Wellington and, no doubt, you visualize all those grand buildings — the Supreme Court, the Bank of Canada, the old Justice Building, the Confederation CHRIS MIKULA, THE OTTAWA CITIZEN Building. On the corner of Kent and Wellington sits Timothy Schmalz’s statue, But there are other aspects to Welling- Whatsoever ton — sombre, inspirational and whim- sical — that you may not consider until whispers sweet nothings in the girl’s ear, Ditto for statues, I said to myself as I you pay attention to, and rediscover, its a reversal, I presume, of the Biblical story packed up my thermos and crossed various monuments. of Eve tempting Adam. Wellington, heading for another “un- As I walked, I kept encountering ob- I’ve seen the sculpture many times, of seen” sculpture. jects — statues, monuments and plaques course, but sipping my coffee beside the The Canadian Phalanx was created af- — I know I’ve seen before. For some rea- young lovers, I noticed the dozens of ter the First World War to honour Cana- son, though, I felt like I was seeing them handwritten messages inscribed on the da’s war veterans. It occupies an island for the first time. bench. Some of the signatures are those in the middle of Lyon Street, just off My sense of discovery began with The of well-known people — writer W.P. Kin- Wellington, under the Memorial Arch Secret Bench of Knowledge on the terrace sella and poet George Elliott Clarke, for linking the east and west Memorial in front of the National Library and example — but the sentiments of chil- Buildings. Archives on Wellington Street, where I dren are the most appealing. “I love I suspect it is one of Ottawa’s more ig- took a morning coffee. hockey, books, and I like to read in bed,” nored — or, better, unattended — monu- Artist Lea Vivot’s sculpture of a boy says eight-year-old Nicholas Defazio. “I ments because of its location, hemmed and a girl on a bench has been there like books because you can use your in as it is by traffic lanes on each side. since 1993. It is a lovely, whimsical piece. imagination,” says Carol Ramsey, also I’ve driven by it regularly, but today was The boy, with a bitten apple in his hand, eight. the first time I really looked at it. Sculptor Ivan Mestrovic’s marble re- lief, unveiled in 1920, depicts a disci- plined line of soldiers with rifles lowered and bayonets fixed. Set inside a granite architectural frame by Aleksander Topolski, the work possesses all the dra- ma and tension of charging soldiers de- termined to achieve their objective. Back on Wellington, I strolled toward Parliament Hill, thinking to find another coffee. Instead, I find this figure in front of St. Andrew’s. Wrapped in a blanket, head bowed and hidden, the begging fig- ure is startling. I see nothing of the face until I bend to its level, and realize I’m looking into the bearded face of Christ. A nearby plaque in the tulip bed quotes a passage from the Bible, Matthew 25:40 — “Truly, whatever you did for one of the least of these my brothers and sisters, you do for me.” Only as I’m about to leave do I notice the “wound” in the up- turned hand protruding from beneath the blanket. The purpose is obvious, and PHOTOS BY CHRIS MIKULA, THE OTTAWA CITIZEN before I leave I pull a coin from my pock- The Secret Bench of Knowledge is inscribed with hand-written messages. Some et. of the signatures are well known — W.P. Kinsella, George Elliott Clarke, for Walking past the Bank of Canada, I starters. In other places, children have signed the sculpture. pause to study the seven bronze plaques — all muscular nudes — that decorate the bank’s neo-classical facade above the brary and Archives — door. Phyllis Jacobine Jones’s allegorical it’s a splendid statue of reliefs of men and women were commis- Sir Arthur George sioned in 1937, and represent Canada’s Doughty, the Dominion primary industries of fishing, electricity, archivist from 1904 to mining, agriculture, forestry, manufac- 1935. turing and construction (remember this The statue was pro- was before NAFTA). posed by former prime I cross the street, strolling around the minister Mackenzie old Justice Building to admire the carv- King in 1937, and begun ing of a musket-toting voyageur in by Robert Tait McKen- fringed buckskin set high on the wall on zie. It was finished by the corner of Kent and Wellington another sculptor, streets, and the feathered Indian above Emanuel Hahn. the door on the west-facing façade. It is a handsome I follow the curving driveway past the work, showing Doughty doors of the Supreme Court to pay my seated in a scholarly respects to Louis St-Laurent, the prime gown, fountain pen in minister from 1948 to 1957. His lonely his right hand poised statue, unveiled in 1976, occupies a cor- over a manuscript on ner of the big rectangle of lawn in front his lap. But it’s of the court. Sculptor Elek Imredy de- Doughty’s words on the picts St-Laurent seated in a suit and pedestal that give this gown and facing the Supreme Court monument its poignancy. I’m curious. where he pleaded numerous cases as a “Of all national assets, archives are the The coin is gone. Someone was paying lawyer before entering politics. I think most precious: they are the gift of one attention. I hope they paused for a mo- he’d look less lonely among the other generation to another and the extent of ment’s refection before taking the mon- prime ministers on Parliament Hill, al- our care of them marks the extent of our ey. though he does have the companionship civilization.” I can’t think of a better ar- I drop another toonie into the wound- of Veritas and Iustitia, Truth and Justice, gument for attending to monuments. ed palm. I’ll have to forgo the coffee, I the two statues that flank the court I really need another coffee. I think of guess. doors. returning to The Secret Bench of Knowl- My last monument of the morning is edge, but on impulse I walk back to St. Robert Sibley is a senior writer for the on the terrace behind the National Li- Andrew’s. Citizen.

2 OUR STORIES IN STONE PART 7 Bravery and spirit, larger than life

CHRIS MIKULA, THE OTTAWA CITIZEN War Memorial: The Response was dedicated to those who served and lost their lives in the First World War. The addition of the Second World War and the Korean War has made the memorial a national symbol of Canadian sacrifice in time of war. At the National War Memorial, 22 bronze men and women remind us of Canadians who built this nation

BY ROBERT SIBLEY ing out across the Douai plain and imag- as British sculptor Vernon March titled ining those young men clawing their way his creation, was unveiled May 21, 1939, ’ve never forgotten the first time I up a muddy slope under the hail of ene- by King George VI. It was dedicated to saw the National War Memorial. It my fire, and feeling — in hindsight, I those who’d served and lost their lives in was the spring of 1976, and I’d re- know no other way of putting it — very the First World War from 1914 to 1918. The turned to Canada after a couple of Canadian. Now, at this smaller memorial addition of other dates — the Second Iyears travelling. During a stopover in Ottawa, I felt something similar.” World War between 1939 and 1945 and in Ottawa, I walked along Wellington I am obviously more familiar with the the Korean War from 1950 to 1953 — has Street to Confederation Square, stopping War Memorial, having lived in Ottawa made the memorial a national symbol of at the foot of the memorial. for nearly 25 years. Unfortunately, famil- Canadian sacrifice in time of war. Years later, in a 1995 essay for the Citi- iarity tends to breed complacency. The Standing on the steps below the mon- zen, I wrote about that encounter. “Look- monument has become part of the back- ument, I study the larger-than-life fig- ing up at the green-stained soldiers, I re- ground of my everyday life. Today, ures — 22 bronze men and women and a membered during my travels in Europe though, as I continue to explore the na- horse hauling a field gun — plunging visiting the Vimy Memorial in France, tional capital’s monuments, I’d like to re- through the granite archway. Each charg- with the names of thousands of soldiers cover something of that first response. ing figure represents a branch of the posted missing and presumed dead The memorial has lost none of its armed forces that served during the etched on its massive ramparts. I re- sculptural impressiveness, I tell myself as Great War — infantry, artillery, navy, air called standing on those ramparts, look- I circle the huge pedestal. The Response, force, medical corps, nurses. The figures are historically accurate in terms of uniforms and equipment — everything from a kilted soldier carrying a Vickers machine-gun to a cavalryman on horseback pulling an 18-pound field gun. The allegorical winged figures on top of the arch bring “the blessings of Victo- ry, Peace and Liberty in the footsteps of the people’s heroism and self-sacrifice (as) they are passing through the arch- way below,” Col. John Gardam wrote in a 1982 Veterans Affairs publication, The National War Memorial. Or, as King George put it 70 years ago: “Not by chance both the crowning fig- ures of peace and freedom stand side by side. Peace and Freedom cannot be long separated … without freedom there can be no enduring peace, and without peace no enduring freedom.” The Tomb of the Unknown Soldier at the base of the War Memorial adds to the Sculptor Mary-Ann Liu’s Tomb of the Unknown Soldier contains the remains of a symbolic significance of the monument. Canadian soldier who died during the First World War. The tomb, placed in Confederation Square in 2000, contains the remains of a Canadian soldier who died during the First World War. Sculptor Mary-Ann Liu’s bronze sword and helmet adorns the sarcophagus, reminding me of the burial vaults of medieval knights in Eng- lish cathedrals. Walking around the monuments I think of how hundreds gather here every Remembrance Day. The crowds seem to get bigger each year, as though the need to remember becomes ever greater as the veterans disappear into history. It is this need to remember that cre- ates monuments, scholars say. Nations forge an identity between the individual and the community by build- ing symbolic objects such as monu- ments that embed in the individual con- sciousness an awareness of significant says Phillips-Desroches. communal events and experiences that “King attempted to establish a ‘foun- would otherwise be forgotten with the dational myth’ that would see Canadians passage of time. through the difficult transition from a That’s certainly the deep purpose of war-time to a peace-time society and the National War Memorial, says schol- economy and realize the sacrifices made ar Susan Phillips-Desroches in a 2002 by the men and women had a positive essay. outcome for the nation,” she writes in Vernon March’s monument sought her Carleton University master’s thesis, “to symbolically represent the people of Canada’s National War Memorial: Re- Canada through this group of men and flection of the Past or Liberal Dream? aging veterans and, after them, the women who went overseas to fight in “The icon chosen to deliver King’s mes- firmer lines of serving soldiers. the Great War … and to record their ac- sage of the emergent nation was the im- And then I see my son marching with tions for future generations.” Those fig- age of the Great War soldier, whose brav- the rest of his Cameron Highlanders ures beneath the arch symbolize “the ery and spirit had brought the country cadet troop. going forth of the nation; a symbolic together.” And for a moment all those memories birth of a triumphant people.” In this I run my hand along the smooth sur- — a long-ago visit to Vimy Ridge, a light, the War Memorial should be seen face of the soldier’s tomb, remembering springtime in Ottawa, a Remembrance as both a memorial to the fallen and as a uncles who fought in the Second World Day parade a decade ago — converge to nation-building project. War, and recalling Remembrance Day make me feel, well, strangely Canadian. Prime Minister Mackenzie King first ceremonies I’ve seen over the years. proposed the War Memorial in 1923, and I turn to look down Elgin Street, con- Robert Sibley is a senior writer took considerable interest in its design, juring the crowds, the faltering ranks of for the Citizen.

2 OUR STORIES IN STONE PART 8 Life-sized heroes at eye level

CHRIS MIKULA, THE OTTAWA CITIZEN The Valiants in Confederation Square are set at a height that encourages passersby to identify with the sculptures. Street-level statues salute ordinary courage in extraordinary times BY ROBERT SIBLEY eye level. This was the source of my am- Gault was wounded three times and lost a bivalence. leg during the First World War.) Even the When the Valiants Memorial was un- It seemed to me the eye-level stature inscription on the monument invokes the veiled in 2006, I wasn’t impressed. I tend made these heroes’ statues less monu- man’s larger-than-life qualities: “His life to like my statues larger than life. But mental, less heroic. was an example of devoted service to over the years I’ve changed my mind. A non-Valiant statue — that of Brig. An- Canada in war and peace.” Today, as I continue my meandering drew Hamilton Gault, across the road at The Valiants Memorial, by contrast, tour of the national capital’s monuments, the top of Elgin Street just north of the eschews such words as “heroism,” “du- I try to figure out why I’ve developed an National Arts Centre — is more to my lik- ty” and “service.” The only reference to affectionate regard for the statues and ing. Gault, a Boer War veteran and a historical sentiment is a phrase from The busts that form this commemoration at wealthy Montreal industrialist, founded Aeneid by Virgil — Nulla dies umquam the top of Elgin Street in Confederation the Princess Patricia’s Canadian Light In- memori vos eximet aevo; No day will ever Square. fantry in Ottawa in 1914. The monument, erase you from the memory of time” — The grouping — five life-sized statues unveiled in 1992, shows him in a heroic engraved on a bronze wall at the base of and nine busts on the northeast corner pose, with medals across his uniformed Sappers Stairway. of the square near the National War chest and a sword across his right shoul- As for the statues themselves, their Memorial — are set at a height that al- der. He looks like he’s about to lead a height and placement renders them, lows passing pedestrians to view them at charge across No Man’s Land. (In fact, well, ordinary. Yet, there is something irreducibly ap- Mohawk chief Thayendanegea, better ly go to his death pealing about these figures by sculptors known as Joseph Brant, who led the in the service of Marlene Hilton Moore and John Mc- Iroquois in support of the British cause that cause? Ewen. And so I circle them, admiring the during the American Revolution. My reverie is in- period details of uniform and dress and The life-sized, head-to-torso busts in- terrupted by a loud studying the faces. clude: Louis De Buade, Comte de Fron- and rambunctious There’s Lt.-Col. Charles-Michel tenac of New France; Loyalist soldier Lt.- gaggle of school kids d’Irumberry de Salaberry with his Col. John Butler; Gen. Isaac Brock of the on a class trip. They sword, cockade hat and wide-cuffed coat. War of 1812; First World War army nurse look to be in junior He and his Voltigeurs Canadiens defeat- Georgina Pope and soldier Cpl. high. They cluster ed a U.S. force in 1813, helping save Lower Joseph Kaeble; and from the around the Canada from invasion. Pierre Le Moyne Second World War, Capt. statues d’Iberville, a war hero from the New John Wallace Thomas, and France era who defeated British in- Maj. Paul Triquet, Lieut. busts, vaders, is also here in all his splendid re- Hampton Gray and Pilot touch- galia. So is Laura Secord, a heroine of the Officer Andrew Mynarski. ing the I spend most of my time Valiants’ with Robert Hampton Gray, bronze the last Canadian to die in the clothing as Second World War, as well the though they last Canadian awarded the Vic- might feel its toria Cross for his heroic actions. texture. The I once wrote an article about girls read the Gray, who was born Nov. 2, 1917, I stare at Gray’s sculpted plaques to in Trail, B.C. each other. On Aug. 9, 1945, Gray, a Royal face.He looks so young. The bigger Canadian Navy Volunteer Re- How did he boys set them- serve pilot aboard a British air- selves beside craft carrier, led his Corsair flight do what he did? the statues to in an attack on a flotilla of Japan- see who is ese warships at anchor in Ona- taller. One wit gawa Bay on the Honshu coast. As flight gives Laura Secord a kiss. leader, he took the brunt of anti-aircraft They may not be taking the statues se- fire, but held his course until he released riously — why should they at their age? his bomb, sinking an enemy warship. Sec- — but watching them I understand what onds later, Gray crashed into the water. makes the Valiants appealing. War of 1812, who struggled alone across He was 27. Five days later, after the atomic They are of a size that speaks to you, miles of dense bush to warn British bombings of Nagaski and Hiroshima, figuratively speaking. forces of an impending American attack. Japan surrendered and the Second World The eye-level contact allows you to She looks like a character out of one of War was over. Three months later, Gray identify with these heroes, to imagine those period movies taken from a Jane was posthumously awarded the Victoria that if they could speak, they might tell Austen novel. Cross, the British Commonwealth’s high- you their courage was quite ordinary, Then there’s Gen. Arthur Currie, the est honour for valour. and that you, too, might act as they did first commander of the Canadian Corps I stare at Gray’s sculpted face. He looks in similar circumstances. during the First World War, the man who so young. How did he do what he did? They are us, at our best. masterminded the Canadian victory at What are the qualities of character that Vimy Ridge. And last, but certainly not allow a man to perceive a cause greater Robert Sibley is a senior writer for the least, there’s the hero of another war — than himself and knowingly and willing- Citizen.

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

CHRIS MIKULA, THE OTTAWA CITIZEN The Peacekeeping 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 British Army 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 Major’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 battalions. ours the “glorious memory of the offi- Cfor Ottawa’s monuments, I’ve The Canadian government offered to cers and men of the Royal Regiment 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 Canadian Army infantry of- wounded and 27 taken prisoner. Unveiled in 2001, it includes a long ficers who served with British regiments Most of the military monuments I’ve wall with the names of Mac-Pap volun- during the Second World War. seen while walking along Sussex Drive teers. A detail from the Commonwealth Air Force Memorial.

promote a warrior mand if one is to keep the peace.” 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 Officer 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, Royal Canadian Air Force; 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 OUR STORIES IN STONE PART 10 A river and its city

CHRIS MIKULA, THE OTTAWA CITIZEN Standing beneath Champlain’s statue,I try to imagine the country he saw: Indian encampments along the banks of the river,the thunderous rapids,the vaulting sky and the forests that seemed to stretch away forever.And then I look around at the city that has come to pass.

On Nepean Point, a collision of history and geography

BY ROBERT SIBLEY land rides like a green ship through the history and politics that produced this grey water. nation’s capital. Social historian Sandra he view from Nepean Point is cer- The point, I decide, provides the finest Gwyn’s lovely phrase comes to mind. Ot- tainly panoramic. Sheltering from view of the capital region. Indeed, I need tawa, she once wrote, is “an idea carved wind and rain against the statue of only turn around to take in the embassies out of the wilderness.” T Samuel de Champlain, I gaze up and government buildings along Sussex Ignoring the rain like a true stalwart the Ottawa River. Drive, the glass domes of the National explorer, I look up at Champlain, won- On my left, the Rideau Canal and Gallery, the silver spires of Notre Dame dering if he might have found the view above it, on a limestone bluff, the neo- Basilica, the green oasis of Major’s Hill inspiring, and what he might think if he gothic spires of the Parliament Buildings. Park, the fairy-tale towers of the Château could see the country he helped create. On the right, there is the Museum of Civ- Laurier and the hulking U.S. embassy The statue, unveiled in 1915 by the ilization and the highrises of Hull — or looking like a landlocked aircraft carrier. Duke of Connaught, shows the great ex- Gatineau, as it is now called — and, in A fitting spot for beginning another plorer with his right arm extended and the hazy distance, the blue line of the day of exploring Ottawa’s monuments. an astrolabe in his hand, measuring the Gatineau Hills. Ahead of me, the Portage From this promontory, you can’t help but angular altitude of the sun, trying to fig- Bridge crosses the river and Victoria Is- wonder at the confluence of geography, ure out his location. His journals, as historian David Hack- ett Fischer recounts in his recently pub- lished biography, Champlain’s Dream, mark the confluence of the Gatineau and Ottawa rivers and, farther south, Rideau Falls pouring into the Ottawa and the ridge of mountains we know as the Eard- ley Escarpment. He also remarks on the river, describing it as “very beautiful and wide,” its banks covered with “fine open woods.” Standing beneath Champlain’s statue, I try to imagine the country he saw: In- dian encampments along the banks of the river, the thunderous rapids, the vaulting sky and the forests that seemed to stretch away forever. And then I look around at the city that has come to pass. I am not the first to imaginatively weld past to present and try to extract mean- ing from the collision of history and ge- ography. Historian Donald Creighton captured the strange marvel of this meeting of time and space in a poetic passage describing PHOTOS BY CHRIS MIKULA, THE OTTAWA CITIZEN Confederation-era Ottawa. “Politics and Champlain’s statue, unveiled by the Duke of Connaught in 1915, shows the geography faced each other in an imme- explorer with an astrolabe, figuring out his location. Sculptor Hamilton diate and implacable confrontation. To MacCarthy, unlike Champlain, did not know how to use an astrolabe — the the north and west lay the enormous ex- statue holds it upside down. panse of rock and water, forest and plain, which made up the half-continent that It’s a work of fiction, so to speak, but not portage a few kilometres south of Al- the new Dominion of Canada had inherit- unwarranted as a symbolic statement. So lumette Island, near Pembroke, and that ed and hoped to occupy as its own. To the far as I know, Champlain never actually it was found, so the story goes, more than south stood the Parliament that must try stood on this bluff, but he did pass by the 250 years later — in 1867 no less — by a to bring this new nation into effective be- point in June of 1613 on his way up river, 14-year-old farm boy, Edward George ing.” searching for the passage that would lead Lee. Fittingly, the astrolabe now resides The rain has let up. I take a final 360- to the riches of the Orient. Sculptor across the river in the Museum of Civi- degree look at the river and its city, and it Hamilton MacCarthy’s stature com- lization. comes to me that the city itself is a kind memorates this first passage. Unfortu- Of course, Champlain wasn’t the only of monument, “a set of ideas or order nately, MacCarthy, unlike Champlain, did explorer to travel the Ottawa River. Three and moderation and civility, realized in not know how to use an astrolabe — the years earlier, in 1610, another French ad- the wilderness,” to borrow again from statue holds it upside down. venturer, Etienne Brulé, ventured up the Sandra Gwyn. I’m fond of history’s moments of syn- river on the way to the Great Lakes. In 1615, I like to think Champlain, a chronicity, to borrow psychologist Carl the Recollet priest Joseph le Caron made visionary in his own right, saw some- Jung’s concept, so I rather like the story it across the Ottawa River’s rapids on his thing similar. of Champlain’s astrolabe. Surely it’s no way to Georgian Bay. But Champlain was coincidence Champlain lost the instru- the first to map the river and name its Robert Sibley is a senior writer ment on that 1613 journey while making a topographical features. for the Citizen.

2 OUR STORIES IN STONE PART 11 A haunting monument to Col. By

CHRIS MIKULA, THE OTTAWA CITIZEN Sculptor Joseph-Emile Brunet’s statue of Col. By in Major Hill’s Park looking across the Rideau Canal at Parliment Hill. Ground-level cairns commemorate little house with a view BY ROBERT SIBLEY ered limestone slopes of Barrack Hill “The house which stands in a good gar- where, a few decades later, a nation’s leg- den overlooks one of the most beautiful ajor’s Hill Park is a haunting islature would be built; and, best of all, spots I have seen in this Country,” place, if you let it. I don’t mean the wide expanse of the Ottawa River? Frances Ramsay Simpson, the newly haunting of the ghostly kind, He must have, I conclude during an af- wed, 18-year-old wife of Hudson’s Bay but rather of the historical ternoon poking around Major’s Hill Park Company Gov. George Simpson, wrote Mimagination. in my continuing exploration of Ottawa’s in her diary on May 4, 1830, after a break- Leaning on the rail that runs along the monuments. After all, he built a two- fast visit with Mrs. By. “It commands an cliff overlooking the Rideau Canal, it’s storey house for his wife and two daugh- extensive view of the river, on the oppo- easy to imagine the canal’s commanding ters on what became known as Colonel’s site side of which is the little village of officer, Lt.-Col. John By, standing here Hill. (When Colonel By returned to Eng- Hull … From the upper storey are to be long before this park existed — in, say, land, Maj. Daniel Bolton succeeded him, seen the fine and romantic Kettle 1830 — wondering how on earth he was and the hill was renamed Major’s Hill — (Chaudière) Falls, and beneath runs the going to complete a project that histori- hence, Major’s Hill Park.) Rideau Canal.” ans would come to regard as the engi- The house was, by all accounts, a fine Sadly, the little house with a view was neer feat of the age. home — an ornate cottage-style building destroyed in a fire in 1848. Only the No doubt, the British Army engineer surrounded by English gardens and a chimney remained standing. Happily, 125 had a lot on his mind, but did he appreci- pasture. One British officer, Capt. years later, in 1973, archeologists started ate the view — the stone Commissariat Alexander, who served with Col. By, de- to poke around the site, exposing the (the oldest stone building in Ottawa, by scribed the house as “tastefully orna- stone foundations and unearthing long- the by, and now the Bytown Museum) he mented with rustic verandas and trellis buried household items — everything built in 1827 to serve as his office during work.” from buttons and spoons to sugar bowls the canal’s construction; the tree-cov- It also provided a fine view of the river. and chamber pots. Today, some of those items — a pipe, a sugar bowl, a teapot, a serving spoon, a water pitcher, a chamber pot — are em- bedded as bronze reproductions in small, ground-level cairns around the cottage site or etched figuratively into a plaque attached to the remnant chimney. These PHOTOS BY CHRIS MIKULA, THE OTTAWA CITIZEN objects, along with the chimney and Sculptor Joseph-Emile Brunet’s statue of Col. By, above, is appropriately heroic. foundation stones, provide a haunting But the ruins and fragments of By’s house, below left, evoke the era and hardship monument to Col. By and his family. of his task: Between 1826 and 1832, he pushed through construction of a project To be sure, there is a less domestic linking 320 kilometres of rivers and lakes between the Ottawa River and Lake monument nearby honouring Col. By, Ontario. Below right: In an obscure corner of Major’s Hill Park, an Anishinabe who, in the six years from 1826 to 1832, Scout looks ignobly lost. pushed through construction of a project linking 320 kilometres of rivers and lakes between the Ottawa River and Lake On- tario. Sculptor Joseph-Emile Brunet’s statue of Col. By overlooking the canal is appropriately heroic. And so it should be. The canal put Ot- tawa on the map, or Bytown as it was called until 1855. Without the canal, it’s doubtful Queen Victoria would have picked the place in 1857 to be the capital of the United Provinces of Upper and Lower Canada. No wonder the monu- ment is inscribed with these words: “Overlooking his Rideau Canal, Lt.-Col. The only incongruity is the statue of John By is commemorated here as the the Anishinabe Scout in the northwest founding father of Ottawa, Canada’s cap- corner of the park. The statue used to be ital.” located on Nepean Point with Samuel de (Col. By is also honoured as the city’s Champlain’s statue, but area aboriginals founder with a granite fountain in Con- took offence at what they regarded as the Fanciful thoughts, perhaps, but federation Park. The fountain stood in statue’s subservient position in relation crouched on the remains of a wall, gaz- Trafalgar Square in London for nearly a to the great white explorer. Not surpris- ing at the once-used crockery and the re- century, from 1845 to 1939, and was given ingly, those in charge of deciding these mains of the foundation, it’s not hard to to Ottawa as a gift in 1955 by the National things caved under the pressures of po- conjure the cottage as it was, and see the Art Collections Fund.) litical correctness. The scout was relo- two women strolling through the garden Equally appropriate, a nearby plaque cated to Major’s Hill Park, where he’s after breakfast that warm morning in honours Sir Edmund Walker Head, the even more out of place. Planted in an ob- May. In my mind, I follow them as Mrs. colonial administrator who, as governor scure corner, the noble looking scout By shows Mrs. Simpson through her general of British North America be- looks ignobly lost in the bush. home, taking the just-arrived-from-Lon- tween 1854 and 1861, was instrumental in After wandering among these plaques don lady upstairs to enjoy the fine view persuading the Queen to choose Ottawa and statues, I return to the ruins and the of the river. as the capital. As well, one interpretive cairns with their inlaid sugar bowls and That’s how history haunts you, if you wall offers a potted history of Ottawa, teacups. Did Col. By puff on this pipe? let it. while another reveals the development Did Mrs. Simpson sip tea from this cup? of Major’s Hill Park from a plot of pas- Did Mrs. By wash her hands with water Robert Sibley is a senior writer for the ture into one of the city’s premier parks. from this pitcher? Citizen.

2 OUR STORIES IN STONE PART 12 From Rocket to spaceship

CHRIS MIKULA, THE OTTAWA CITIZEN With gloves on and stick at the ready, a statue of Maurice ‘Rocket’ Richard occupies a corner of the park at the intersection of Rue Laurier and Boulevard St-Laurent. Lament for a lost era: Exploring Gatineau’s monumental history BY ROBERT SIBLEY sidering its origins, that’s appropriate. As Wright, around the 1830s — where I took the plaque explains, the sculpture was a bench to enjoy my first coffee of the t first sight, the spaceship looks as created more that 40 years ago when day and admire the boats at the marina though it’s been abandoned on mankind was imagining a future among below me and listen to the hum of com- the wrong planet. But after an the stars. In fact, this sculpture is a small- muter traffic crossing the Alexandra Ahour staring at the thing while I er version of Explorer I, which was com- Bridge. It was a lovely sun-shiny morn- eat my lunch on the patio of the Théâtre missioned for Expo ’67. ing. A fine day, I figured, for a tour of de l’Île, a small oasis in the middle of Still, there’s something melancholy some of Hull’s — sorry, Gatineau’s — Brewery Creek in Gatineau, I change my about it. Is it the sculpture? Or me? Both? “monumental” history. mind. In any case, the alien-looking artifact re- I began by paying my respects to a Or, maybe it was the other way flects my mood at the end of another day hockey legend. Maurice “The Rocket” around: the spaceship changes my exploring the capital region’s monu- Richard’s larger-than-life statue occupies mind. ments. a corner of the park at the intersection of Sculptor Victor Tolgesy’s Explorer II In the morning, I parked the car at Rue Laurier and Boulevard St-Laurent. I sits at the tip of the island. Its round and Jacques-Cartier Park and sauntered recalled Jean Chrétien’s remark when angular shapes — made of corten steel, across the lawn to Maison Charron — Richard died in 2000. The Rocket, the the same metal used to make warships the oldest house in Hull; built, it is former prime minister said, “defined and — evoke images of distance places. Con- thought, by the city’s founder, Philemon transcended the game of hockey.” Afterward, I crossed St-Laurent to the Museum of Civilization for my second cup of the day on the terrace café at the back of the museum, where I enjoyed the view of Parliament Hill across the river. Below me at the river’s edge was the Voyageur Pathway that would take me to Parc Moussette. When my caffeine requirement was sated, I headed down the sloping bank of the Riverside Plaza, pausing at sculptor Louis Archambault’s white-painted steel abstract “people.” My pause for Person- nages, erected in 1967, was glancing at best. The museum, however, deserved a longer look. Just before entering the tun- nel of greenery that lines the riverside pathway, I looked back to confirm a long- held conviction that architect Douglas Cardinal’s museum, with its walls of rip- pling stone, is the loveliest building of recent vintage in the area, certainly bet- ter than the new War Museum, which al- ways makes me think of a half-sunk cap- sized ship. Cardinal’s museum qualifies as a mon- CHRIS MIKULA , THE OTTAWA CITIZEN ument itself. Its curving walls glow in the Victor Tolgesy’s Explorer II is made of corten steel, which is the same metal used morning sun. to make warships. But then everything seemed to shine and shimmer this morning. Through gaps in the maples, willows and poplars rants and boutiques. I strolled up Rue Fountain, is a 15-metre structure by artist that line the pathway, I could admire the Wright to Rue Montcalm. The up-and- Vincent Théberge composed of cylinders “monuments” on the other side of the down street with its small houses, out- that symbolize logs. When the water river — the Rideau Canal, the Parliament side stairwells and balconies decorated flows out of the top of the fountain and Buildings, the Supreme Court, the Na- with potted plants — “a world quite dif- down the “logs,” you get a symbolic invo- tional Archives. ferent from the nearby towers,” as Ed- cation of the timber rafts that once domi- But then, rounding a long curve in the ward Brado rightly observes in his Guide nated the Ottawa River. riverbank, I caught sight of the Trudeau- to Ottawa. Over a coffee and croissant at Across the street, I entered Parc des era Portage Complex on my right. The Café Jean-Sébastian on the corner of Rue Portageurs and walked along Voyageur grey towers are, to my mind, the ugliest Saint-Jacques, I admired the surround- Pathway, finding yet another invocation buildings in the Ottawa area. The full aw- ing streets and their false-front shops. of Hull’s past. John McEwen’s flame-cut fulness of these blank-face buildings They reminded me of small towns in steel sculpture, entitled Boat Sight, de- landed like a bag of cement when, just af- Normandy, as long as I avoided looking picts the bare ribs of an unfinished boat. ter passing sculptor Phyllis Kurtz Fine’s at the surrounding government build- The boat ribs provide a frame for the 1978 abstract steel tower, entitled Com- ings. spiky skyline of Ottawa across the grey mentary — I came out of the pathway at Afterward, I walked down to Rue river and the old industrial works on the the Portage Bridge. Montcalm and then left down to Boule- islands in the river. Even the ramshackle remains of the vard Alexandre-Taché to find the en- According to my handy NCC E.B. Eddy industrial complex along Rue trance to Parc des Portageurs. brochure, Boat Sight symbolizes the ar- Laurier between the Portage and the First, though, I stopped at the plaza in rival of “culture” in the primeval forest, Chaudière bridges was preferable. front of Les Terrasses de la Chaudière, while the silhouetted dogs curiously cir- At least it possesses historical interest, another government block not quite as cling the boat represent nature. I like this reminding us that this area along the riv- ugly as the Portage Complex. I found the abstract monument for the simple way it er was once the heart of the region’s lum- monument to Hull’s founding father, evokes the remembrance of those first ber industry. Philemon Wright. The American entre- European explorers on the Ottawa Riv- I recalled a line from a history book: preneur and his family were the original er, stirring the historical imagination to “Hull without the E.B. Eddy Company settlers of the area in 1800, founding visualize the travellers who came ashore would be like Shakespeare’s play of Wrightstown, which eventually became on these flat rocks to portage their boats Hamlet with Hamlet left out.” Hull in 1875, and establishing the area’s and canoes around the once-thunderous A detour up Rue Laval to Place Aubry lumber industry. The small obelisk with barrier of Chaudière Falls. — passing a statue of 17th-century a bronze relief portrait of Wright was un- Further upriver, I find certain anoth- French explorer Samuel de Champlain veiled in 1950 by Governor General er equally evocative monument to an- that I didn’t know existed — offered Alexander of Tunis on the 150th anniver- other traveler who sojourned on these some compensation for the sight of the sary of the American’s arrival in the area. shores, Father Jean de Brébeuf. The Je- Portage complex. Nearby on the plaza is another monu- suit priest, according to the plaque on I sauntered through the area with its ment to Hull’s lumbering history. The his statue in Parc Moussette, was “tor- narrow lanes lined with bars and restau- Fontaine des Bâtisseurs, or Builder’s tured by the Hurons” and “died mar-

2 tyred by the Iroquois.” It was a long time ago — March 16, 1649, to be precise — and I wonder whether the wording would be different if the stat- ue was unveiled today, rather than in the politically incor- rect year of 1926 (a year after Brébeuf was beatified by Pope Pius XI). Brébeuf’s statue, arms dra- matically raised with a cruci- fix in one hand, stands atop a large stone cairn, just off Rue Brunet at the entrance to Parc Moussette. The Ottawa River and the muted roar of the Lit- tle Chaudière Rapids provide a fitting backdrop for the monument. From the shore I see the Champlain Bridge on my right, Vérendrye and Alexander Mackenzie stranded space ship. and, looking left, small rocky islands (strange how names learned in high While I eat my tuna sandwich and covered with gulls and, in the distance, school history so readily return). I visu- drain a bottle of Perrier, I study the the railway bridge. Across the river, a alize them paddling past, heading up- space ship. It definitely looks stranded, string of high-rises hide behind a veil of river, leaving civilization behind, light- slowly sinking (so it seems) in a knoll greenery. ing out for the territory, moving always of low-lying plants, a forgotten relic Sitting on the shore’s edge, the rush- closer to the unknown — until the from a time when men thrilled to the ing river at my feet, in the shade of a whoosh of a brightly coloured pair of thought of unknown places to explore. poplar, tree, I can’t help but conjure cyclists dispels the image. Offering bread crumbs to pigeons, I Brébeuf’s presence, imagining him The imagined vision gone, I head imagine the melancholy of an archeolo- coming ashore here in 1626, on his way back down the pathway, cutting gist who knows the artifacts he’s dis- to the Great Lakes where he would es- through the quiet streets of Tétreau covered are from a heroic era he knows tablish his missionary station at Huro- and along Boulévard Alexandre-Taché will never come again. nia. to Rue Montcalm, where I find the Here, too, passed the likes of Brûlé, small island park in the middle of Robert Sibley is a senior writer Vignau, Radisson, Desgroseillers, La Brewery Creek and discover the for the Citizen.

3 OUR STORIES IN STONE PART 6 Paying attention Whimsy, surprises and moments of reflection on Wellington Street

BY ROBERT SIBLEY

slot a toonie in the outstretched palm, glancing up and down Wellington Street to check if any- one is watching. There is no partic- I ular reason to feel self-conscious, but I do. I don’t usually give money to statues. This one, however, elicits such a re- sponse. Timothy Schmalz’s statue sits crossed-legged on the corner of Kent and Wellington streets, half-hidden among the tulips and daffodils that fill the planters in front of St. Andrew’s Pres- byterian Church. Perhaps half-hidden is the wrong word. The statue, entitled Whatsoever ..., is quite visible, but it surprises me. I’ve walked passed the old church many times, but for the life of me I couldn’t re- call noticing the hooded beggar. I guess I wasn’t paying attention. Statues are like that. We create them, plop them in some spot, and then forget them. It’s not that we no longer “see” them, but rather, we no longer pay atten- tion. They become a visual version of white noise, an unconscious backdrop to our lives. This notion has been with me all morning as I explore some of the monu- ments in and around Wellington Street. Think of Wellington and, no doubt, you visualize all those grand buildings — the Supreme Court, the Bank of Canada, the old Justice Building, the Confederation CHRIS MIKULA, THE OTTAWA CITIZEN Building. On the corner of Kent and Wellington sits Timothy Schmalz’s statue, But there are other aspects to Welling- Whatsoever ton — sombre, inspirational and whim- sical — that you may not consider until whispers sweet nothings in the girl’s ear, Ditto for statues, I said to myself as I you pay attention to, and rediscover, its a reversal, I presume, of the Biblical story packed up my thermos and crossed various monuments. of Eve tempting Adam. Wellington, heading for another “un- As I walked, I kept encountering ob- I’ve seen the sculpture many times, of seen” sculpture. jects — statues, monuments and plaques course, but sipping my coffee beside the The Canadian Phalanx was created af- — I know I’ve seen before. For some rea- young lovers, I noticed the dozens of ter the First World War to honour Cana- son, though, I felt like I was seeing them handwritten messages inscribed on the da’s war veterans. It occupies an island for the first time. bench. Some of the signatures are those in the middle of Lyon Street, just off My sense of discovery began with The of well-known people — writer W.P. Kin- Wellington, under the Memorial Arch Secret Bench of Knowledge on the terrace sella and poet George Elliott Clarke, for linking the east and west Memorial in front of the National Library and example — but the sentiments of chil- Buildings. Archives on Wellington Street, where I dren are the most appealing. “I love I suspect it is one of Ottawa’s more ig- took a morning coffee. hockey, books, and I like to read in bed,” nored — or, better, unattended — monu- Artist Lea Vivot’s sculpture of a boy says eight-year-old Nicholas Defazio. “I ments because of its location, hemmed and a girl on a bench has been there like books because you can use your in as it is by traffic lanes on each side. since 1993. It is a lovely, whimsical piece. imagination,” says Carol Ramsey, also I’ve driven by it regularly, but today was The boy, with a bitten apple in his hand, eight. the first time I really looked at it. Sculptor Ivan Mestrovic’s marble re- lief, unveiled in 1920, depicts a disci- plined line of soldiers with rifles lowered and bayonets fixed. Set inside a granite architectural frame by Aleksander Topolski, the work possesses all the dra- ma and tension of charging soldiers de- termined to achieve their objective. Back on Wellington, I strolled toward Parliament Hill, thinking to find another coffee. Instead, I find this figure in front of St. Andrew’s. Wrapped in a blanket, head bowed and hidden, the begging fig- ure is startling. I see nothing of the face until I bend to its level, and realize I’m looking into the bearded face of Christ. A nearby plaque in the tulip bed quotes a passage from the Bible, Matthew 25:40 — “Truly, whatever you did for one of the least of these my brothers and sisters, you do for me.” Only as I’m about to leave do I notice the “wound” in the up- turned hand protruding from beneath the blanket. The purpose is obvious, and PHOTOS BY CHRIS MIKULA, THE OTTAWA CITIZEN before I leave I pull a coin from my pock- The Secret Bench of Knowledge is inscribed with hand-written messages. Some et. of the signatures are well known — W.P. Kinsella, George Elliott Clarke, for Walking past the Bank of Canada, I starters. In other places, children have signed the sculpture. pause to study the seven bronze plaques — all muscular nudes — that decorate the bank’s neo-classical facade above the brary and Archives — door. Phyllis Jacobine Jones’s allegorical it’s a splendid statue of reliefs of men and women were commis- Sir Arthur George sioned in 1937, and represent Canada’s Doughty, the Dominion primary industries of fishing, electricity, archivist from 1904 to mining, agriculture, forestry, manufac- 1935. turing and construction (remember this The statue was pro- was before NAFTA). posed by former prime I cross the street, strolling around the minister Mackenzie old Justice Building to admire the carv- King in 1937, and begun ing of a musket-toting voyageur in by Robert Tait McKen- fringed buckskin set high on the wall on zie. It was finished by the corner of Kent and Wellington another sculptor, streets, and the feathered Indian above Emanuel Hahn. the door on the west-facing façade. It is a handsome I follow the curving driveway past the work, showing Doughty doors of the Supreme Court to pay my seated in a scholarly respects to Louis St-Laurent, the prime gown, fountain pen in minister from 1948 to 1957. His lonely his right hand poised statue, unveiled in 1976, occupies a cor- over a manuscript on ner of the big rectangle of lawn in front his lap. But it’s of the court. Sculptor Elek Imredy de- Doughty’s words on the picts St-Laurent seated in a suit and pedestal that give this gown and facing the Supreme Court monument its poignancy. I’m curious. where he pleaded numerous cases as a “Of all national assets, archives are the The coin is gone. Someone was paying lawyer before entering politics. I think most precious: they are the gift of one attention. I hope they paused for a mo- he’d look less lonely among the other generation to another and the extent of ment’s refection before taking the mon- prime ministers on Parliament Hill, al- our care of them marks the extent of our ey. though he does have the companionship civilization.” I can’t think of a better ar- I drop another toonie into the wound- of Veritas and Iustitia, Truth and Justice, gument for attending to monuments. ed palm. I’ll have to forgo the coffee, I the two statues that flank the court I really need another coffee. I think of guess. doors. returning to The Secret Bench of Knowl- My last monument of the morning is edge, but on impulse I walk back to St. Robert Sibley is a senior writer for the on the terrace behind the National Li- Andrew’s. Citizen.

2 OUR STORIES IN STONE PART 14 A spirit in the stone ruins

CHRIS MIKULA, THE OTTAWA CITIZEN Former Canadian prime minister William Lyon Mackenzie King pieced together these stone ruins from the remnants of other buildings. Some of the stones were salvaged after the fire that destroyed the Parliament Buildings in 1916, while others were recovered from the British Houses of Parliament after they were renovated. My tour guide of Moorside? William Lyon Mackenzie King

BY ROBERT SIBLEY cated soul — “There is no doubt I lead a both beautiful and idiosyncratic. very double life,” he wrote in his diary. “The true, abiding passion of King’s life illiam Lyon Mackenzie But only when his diaries became public was his estate in the Gatineau Hills,” King, Canada’s longest- after his death in 1950, did Canadians writes Edwinna von Baeyer in her 1990 serving prime minister, learn that the bland and plodding man book, Garden of Dreams: Kingsmere and was unquestionably a who led them on and off for 22 years be- Mackenzie King. “King was more relaxed Wcharacter of contradiction. tween 1921 and 1948 possessed a strange at Kingsmere, more inclined to give his He was an ambitious politician with a inner life. ‘other life’ fuller expression.” capacity for ruthlessness that enabled Maybe they didn’t look closely enough, I adopt the romantic spirit of the him to thrive during 40 years of public I think as I continue to explore the capi- place, imagining myself as King’s guest life. But he was also a ghost-haunted, tal region’s monuments with a stroll on a tour of Moorside, one of the two lovelorn man given to séances with his around Kingsmere, the country estate in main areas of Kingsmere. We admire dead mother. As biographer C.P. Stacey Gatineau Park that King bequeathed to the steep-roofed cottage with its wrap- puts it, King “was an inhabitant of two Canadians. If you want clues to King’s around veranda, the flagstone walk- worlds.” psyche, this spread of gardens, gargoyles ways, the towering oaks and maples, King was certainly aware of his bifur- and stone ruins is the place to look. It is and the scattering of statuary, sundials and birdbaths. We pause at the balustrade at the edge of the terraced lawn to admire the gar- den below — a French-style section with a symmetrical arrangement of gerani- ums and roses, and an English-style sec- tion with its perennial display of pop- pies, peonies and irises. I express appreciation that my com- panion didn’t cover the occasional slabs and boulders of the Canadian Shield that thrust through the green expanse of lawn. He explains that he wanted to ex- press his political vision of the country through landscaping: a rugged land where French- and English-speaking Canadians attempt to live together. The spirit leads us to the stone ruins — the Window on the Forest, the Arc de Triomphe and the Abbey Ruins, as they are titled — that King pieced together over the years from the remnants of oth- er buildings. Some of the stones were salvaged from the fire that destroyed the Parliament Buildings in 1916, while oth- ers were obtained from fragments of the British Houses of Parliament he some- how recovered after they were renovat- ed. It’s hard to conceive a contemporary prime minister getting away with such a private beautification project, but then it’s even harder to imagine contempo- rary politicians possessing King’s imagi- nation. The arch of Arc de Triomphe was cre- ated from the entrance pillars of the old British North American Bank Note Company in downtown Ottawa. Other PHOTOS BY CHRIS MIKULA, THE OTTAWA CITIZEN parts of the bank provided the pillars and If you want clues to lintel for the Window-on-the-Forest ruin William Lyon Mackenzie that separates the flower gardens from King’s psyche, this the more natural area — more Canadian spread of gardens, Shield? Sure, why not, my spectral guide gargoyles and stone responds — known as the Hidden Gar- ruins at the former prime den. minister’s country The temple-like front piece of the estate, Kingsmere, is the Abbey Ruins — “Greek temple on a hill,” place to look. he says — came from a bay window King spotted as it was being removed from a Sandy Hill house about to be de- molished. King’s imagination turned the bay window into the Acropolis. Some historians have been inclined to scholar Susan Phillips-Desroches ob- Some historians have mock King’s romanticism and, no doubt, serves in a 2002 study, the war memorial a psychologist could make much of his is not only a military commemoration, been inclined to mock King’s spiritualist inclinations — a defence but also “a reflection of Mackenzie romanticism and,no doubt, mechanism for dealing with the insani- King’s political, personal, and national ties of public life? — but neither obser- ambitions.” a psychologist could make much vation dispels the fact Canadians, espe- Throughout his career, King promot- of his spiritualist inclinations — cially Ottawans, benefited from his “fre- ed the need to beautify Ottawa with quently irrational private life,” to borrow parks and monuments suitable to a na- but Canadians,especially Stacey’s phrase. tion’s capital. During his first and sec- Ottawans,benefited from Indeed, the streets of Ottawa reflect ond terms as prime minister in the his ‘frequently irrational private King’s spirit almost as much as 1920s, King embarked on “ambitious Kingsmere. The National War Memorial plans for the city,” writes Phillips- life’ would never have been built on the scale Desroches in her Carleton University it was without King’s promotion. As master’s thesis, Canada’s National War

2 Memorial: Reflection of the Past or Liber- But King wasn’t done with the capital. al Dream? This included, in 1927, the That same year, he asked French town Peace Tower and a statue honouring his planner Jacques Gréber to produce a predecessor, Wilfrid Laurier, as well as plan for the national capital region. The constructing “a major public plaza” to Gréber Plan included everything from be named Confederation Square. parkways and greenbelts to shunting the King addressed his aspirations for Ot- railway out of the downtown and acquir- tawa in a 1923 speech to Parliament. “We ing Gatineau Park. may not come to have the largest, the The results are all around us today. wealthiest, or the most cosmopolitan King’s “irrationality” was, it seems, good Capital in the world, but I believe that for Ottawa, monumentally speaking, cer- with Ottawa’s natural and picturesque tainly better than much of the rational setting, given stately proportions, and a planning of his successors. (Think of the little careful planning, we can have the Trudeau-era Portage Complex in most beautiful Capital in the world … Gatineau-formerly-known-as Hull, or (and) those who follow in future years the Bunker-by-the-Canal known as the will come to recognize it as an expres- National Arts Centre.) sion in some degree of the soul of Cana- Standing in the Abbey Ruins, where da.” King once considered locating his grave, By 1937, King thought he had cause for I ask my otherworldly companion to ex- self-congratulation. “I feel the vision of plain the conundrum. years are at last being realized, from the I receive a ghostly smile: Life is full of Harper monument on Wellington Street, contradictions. to the Bank of Canada, and the War memorial at the head of Elgin,” he wrote Robert Sibley is a senior writer in his diary. for the Citizen

3 OUR STORIES IN STONE PART 15 Stone: The capital’s monuments are writings on the landscape

CHRIS MIKULA, THE OTTAWA CITIZEN Markings that cover the curving wall located behind the Supreme Court are rudimentary but, like many of the statues and monuments scattered through the city, they testify to a longing to affix the human presence with meaning and purpose.

BY ROBERT SIBLEY mento of their passing moment. The capital’s monuments, like all mon- The markings — there are dozens uments, are writings on the landscape, Artifacts are thrust into the world. They along the wall’s curving length — are assertions of human spirit amidst an have the power to stabilize life. rudimentary, reminiscent of the signs overwhelming geography. — Geographer Yi Fu Tuan lovers carve on tree trunks or little boys Today’s exploration, my final walk, is a any of the names and initials are inscribe in wet cement. Yet, for all their meditation on that notion — creating barely legible, worn away by commonplace sentiment they are “place” amidst “space.” I’m following the time. Still, I scrape away grit and strangely evocative. pathways along Ottawa River, from the Mlichen to discover the identities Or maybe, after two weeks of explor- Portage Bridge to the Alexandra Bridge of tourists and lovers who’ve scratched ing the national capital’s landscape of on the Ontario side, and then back again their presence on the stone top of the ter- monuments, I’m seeing every artifact — on the Quebec side. The walk approxi- race wall. from statues and wall plaques to gar- mates one I first did shortly after moving Roy Chantal and Babe Shaw were here goyles and graffiti — in monumental to Ottawa nearly 25 years ago, a way of in- May 31, 1967, to enjoy the view of the Ot- terms. troducing the city to myself. Back then, as tawa River from the lookout behind the The marks left by Doreen and Bernard, I recall, everything — Parliament Hill, Supreme Court. Ken and Casey visited Roy and Babe, Ken and Casey differ only Champlain’s statue on Nepean Point, the in 1974. Jim announced how much he in kind and dimension from the monu- National War Memorial — possessed the loved Theresa in 1983. Bernard Skehen ments to kings, queens, soldiers and shine of strangeness. and Doreen Paul left their mark Sept. 6, politicians that I’ve encountered. I am obviously more familiar with the 1965. Statues or scratches, they all testify to city now. Its streets, neighbourhoods, ar- In 1954, Margaret and Ulrich Richie a longing to affix the human presence chitecture and, yes, its monuments, have etched their names into stone as a me- with meaning and purpose. become the familiar and largely uncon- scious backdrop to my life. But walking ments: “Monument-building is about those streets these past weeks has rekin- making thoughts and ideas into concrete dled a sense of strangeness, or, more pre- form.” cisely, the familiar has become strange in In this regard, monuments should be its familiarity. It’s as if at the end of my seen as cultural products that have their two-week exploration, I know the place function, their power, in the symbolic and for the first time, and, somehow, it’s dif- physical realms, and the meaning of a ferent from what it was before. monument reflects the purposes of those Even the view before me now — the who built it. Monument builders want to broad stretch of the river and the shape society according to their ideals and Gatineau Hills, blue and hazy in the dis- ideas, including that of nation building, tance — seems more panoramic than I says Roberts. Arguably, the most essential remember. cultural landscape for fulfilling this nation- With that notion in mind, I head for building purpose is, or should be, the na- the stairway at the back of Library and tional capital. In Roberts’ words: “The Archives Canada that leads to the Ottawa landscape of the capital represents a long- River Pathway. term commitment by a variety of actors to ■ ■ ■ create an imaginary world of meanings re- lated to what it means to be Canadian.” It’s a fine day for a walk, sunny and CHRIS MIKULA, THE OTTAWA CITIZEN Many of the monuments I’ve encoun- warm with a cooling breeze off the river. A plaque commemorates those who tered — the statue of Queen Victoria on Joggers, inline skaters, cyclists and office built the Alexandra Bridge. Parliament Hill, the South African War workers, jackets slung over their shoul- Memorial in Confederation Park or the ders, crowd the pathway. Three women same way that an artist lives on in his Sharpshooters’ statue in front of the share a blanket on the grassy strip at the painting or a poet in his poetry. Even en- Cartier Square Drill Hall that commem- river’s edge. The tinny voice of a tour gineers crave remembrance. orates the Northwest Rebellion, for ex- boat guide competes with the screech- So, too, do architects, I tell myself as I ample — reflect the city’s British her- ing gulls holding a convention on rocky cross the bridge and turn onto the itage, which, as Roberts points out, pro- outcrops in the river. Voyageurs Pathway below architect vided “a rich repository of material to Looking up, I see the steep-sloped cop- Douglas Cardinal’s magnificent Museum help in the formation of a new country.” per roof of the Supreme Court, and, of Civilization. Does Cardinal regard his Monument building acquired a more ahead of me, beyond the tree-thick lime- building as a monument to his life? If so, pan-Canadian flavour after the First stone escarpment, the spires of the Par- then his aspirations are fundamentally World War. The National War Memorial, liamentary Library and the Peace Tow- no different than those of tourists who the prime ministerial statues on Parlia- er. A flag on the tower flaps against the carve their initials on walls. We all want ment Hill, and, more recently, the Peace- blue sky. to be remembered. keeping Monument on Sussex Drive and Rounding a bend, I catch my first So, too, do nations. Nations, however, the Valiants statues and busts in Confed- glimpse of the entrance to the Rideau create remembrance — and significance eration Square; they all testify to the de- Canal and the cliffs below Major’s Hill — through monuments. velopment of a “national” identity. Park. The glass dome of the National Of course, monuments can become Gallery and the silver spires of Notre THE POWER OF MONUMENTS unfashionable. Think of the haste with Dame Cathedral catch the sun. Samuel A monument, according to the Oxford which the newly liberated nations of de Champlain’s statue stands in silhou- English Dictionary, is “anything enduring eastern Europe scrapped the statues to ette on Nepean Point like some kind of that serves to commemorate or make Marx, Lenin and Stalin after the collapse guiding spirit. celebrated.” That’s OK, but the larger of the Soviet Empire, or how quick Iraqis From the plaza at the foot of the question is the purpose of commemora- were to pull down Saddam Hussein’s Rideau Canal, I admire the fairy-tale tion that monuments serve. I like scholar statues in Baghdad. Such is the power of towers of the Château Laurier and the Marvin Trachtenburg’s summary: Mon- symbols. towers of the House of Commons at the uments “function as social magnets, But you don’t need revolution or top of the escarpment. crystallizations of social energy, one of regime change for monuments to fall in- On the other side of the canal, set the means civilization has devised to re- to disfavour. They can also fade into the against the cliff face, I find a Celtic-style inforce its background, their meaning and import cross, dedicated to the “memory of the cohesiveness and to give meaning and no longer relevant. As geographers Ken- 1,000 workers and their families who structure to life. Monuments are a way neth Foote and Maoz Azaryahu write in died building this canal — 1826-1832.” men transmit communal emotions, a a 2007 essay, new forms of commemora- The sloping pathway takes me up to medium of continuity and interaction tion are added to the cultural landscape the Alexandra Bridge, or, as it is also between generations.” while others disappear, gradually or known, the Interprovincial Bridge. I stop It is this symbolic function, this capac- abruptly, according to the needs and con- to read the plaque riveted to a girder at ity for transmitting (and transforming) cerns of the times. “Monuments are rein- the bridge entrance. The Dominion communal self- terpreted and their social and political Bridge Company of Lachine, I learn, built understanding that provides monuments relevance is reformulated according to the bridge in 1900 for the Pontiac Pacific with their power. The ideas and ideals of contemporary priorities and sensitivi- Junction and Ottawa and Gatineau rail- any society — freedom and democracy, ties.” ways. Horace J. Beemer was the contrac- rights and responsibility, pride and patri- tor, and Guy C. Dunn the chief engineer. otism, courage and self-sacrifice — de- ARE WE TOO INCLUSIVE? Both men are long dead, of course, but fine its collective identity. But as another This has been Ottawa’s experience, at walking across their bridge I think about scholar, John Roberts, observes, nations least to some extent. The National War how they live on in their work in the foster that identity by means of monu- Memorial may retain its relevancy de-

2 spite the passage of 70 years since its un- ment Buildings, the Supreme Court and veiling — the increasing numbers who Library and Archives Canada are always attend Remembrance Day services at- in view, monuments to a particular idea tests to this — but the triumphal South of Canada. I remember historian Sandra African War Memorial or the mournful Gwyn’s lovely reference to Ottawa as “an Sharpshooters’ statue are no longer cele- idea carved out of the wilderness.” brated even though they endure. Crossing the Portage Bridge back to But something else has been happen- Ottawa, I pass the boarded-up ruins of ing to monuments. Foote and Azaryahu the Ottawa Carbide Company Mill, built point out that a major shift in regard to in the 1890s, and the recreated aborigi- what and who should be commemorat- nal village with its stockade, trading post ed took place in the last decades of the and teepees on Victoria Island. There are 20th century, at least in the West. What too many people milling about the car we now see, monumentally speaking, is park to suit my mood. I abandon my plan the commemoration of victims rather to conclude my walk at the tip of the is- than heroes and warriors. “A new and land with its view downriver. I decide to significant development has been the CHRIS MIKULA, THE OTTAWA CITIZEN go to the Garden of the Provinces and growing emphasis on commemorating The South African War Memorial in Con- Territories, across from the archives. shameful events and honouring the federation Park. But I abandon that plan, too. On im- memory of victims of genocides and pulse, I take a staircase off the Portage massacres, in effect acknowledging more ance, will monuments lose their unitary Bridge, following the path that leads to openly the influence that violence plays function and become symbols of social the end of Richmond Landing, a small in society.” fragmentation? If everyone gets their peninsula that juts into the river between The most compelling examples of this slice of symbolic territory, can we really Victoria Island and the Ontario side of are the numerous commemorations of have “national” symbols that unite us re- the river, just below the archives. There the Holocaust and the victims of the gardless of creed, colour or sexual per- are no people, and I still have a fine view. Nazi era, along with the victims of the suasion? Might all those monuments I find a spot at the river’s edge where I bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. concerned with violence, injustice, can stare at the swirling river and gaze at More recently, memorials have been abuse, etc. produce a psychology that re- the ancient limestone bluffs and the built, or are being built, to commemorate duces Canadians as a whole to victim gothic glory of the Parliament Buildings. the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing and the status since everyone at some point in In the distance I can see Samuel de 2001 terrorist attacks on the United their lives is a victim of some injustice or Champlain’s statue on Nepean Point. States. abuse however slight. If everyone is a Geographer Yi Fu Tuan once observed This turn to victim memorialization victim, there can be no heroes as models that the capacity to recover the strange- has made its mark on Ottawa’s symbolic of inspiration. (Who in their right mind ness in the familiar is a kind of grace, per- landscape. The Women’s Monument aspires to be a victim?) If everyone gets a haps one of the few forms of transcen- Against Violence — Enclave — in Minto statue, statues have no real significance. dent experience available in our disen- Park memorializes women who’ve been chanted modern world. Monuments can abused or murdered by men. The Viet- STRANGENESS IN THE FAMILIAR serve that purpose, too. Monuments are namese Commemorative Monument on That idea preoccupies me as I follow “places” where we can pause for reflec- the corner of Preston and Somerset Voyageurs Pathway to the Portage tion in the midst of our daily routines, streets, with its depiction of a Viet- Bridge. What kind of monuments are places where, with a bit of imagination, namese woman running with a child in suitable to the nation’s capital? Perhaps we can glimpse the human spirit in its her arms, is another example of this cur- the answer is right in front of me. heroic encounter with the world. Maybe rent fashion. Through gaps in the maples, willows and we need to regard monuments as bridges John Roberts argues that many of these poplars that line the pathway, the Parlia- across the gap that separates victims and newer monuments reveal “the break- down of the idea of a unitary Canadian heritage.” While earlier monuments “em- phasized broad national themes without particular reference to issues of gender and ethnicity,” more recent works reflect “the fragmentation of identity” that has resulted from changing demographics, the pressures of multiculturalism and at- tention to ethnic and minority concerns. For many Canadians, he suggests, the older monumental order, with its empha- sis on statesman, soldiers and great events, possesses little that is distinctly Canadian with which they can identify. I don’t quarrel with Roberts’ argument. Nor is it unreasonable for supposedly dispossessed groups to want monu- ments that highlight their contribution to the nation. But is there such a thing as being too inclusive? If every group can CHRIS MIKULA, THE OTTAWA CITIZEN erect a monument to its particular griev- Samuel de Champlain’s monument at Nepean Point.

3 victimizers, oppressed and oppressor. march inland through the white pine forests I remember reading that the Royal Cana- to the newly surveyed village of Richmond. Selected Series Sources dian Navy wants to build a monument on It is in such imaginative moments that you Richmond Landing to commemorate its understand how former prime minister rich history. I hope they come up with Mackenzie King could refer to Ottawa as ■ John Bell, editor, Ottawa: A Literary something noble, something inspirational, “the soul of Canada,” and argue that the city, Portrait, 1992. something concretely human (as distinct in its architecture, monuments, museums from abstract) with which visitors can iden- and memorials, had to “give some expres- ■ Courtney Bond, City on the Ottawa: A tify. And something that recalls the history sion of all that is highest in the idealism of Detailed Historical Guide, n.d. of this place. the nation.” For a moment I imagine that history, en- The screech of a gull breaks my reverie. I ■ Edward Brado, Guide to Ottawa: A visioning when those gothic towers did not stand, looking around as though I might see Cultural and Historical Companion, 1991. exist, when there was only wilderness, and evidence of those long ago soldiers. But then, like a movie in fast forward, there’s a there is no sign of their landing, beyond the ■ City of Ottawa, Ottawa: A Guide to ghostly Indian village strung along the ghosts of my imagination. And yet I need on- Heritage Structures, 2000. shore, and Champlain paddling upriver, and ly look down river to see all those other the soldiers of the 100th Prince Regent’s monuments Canadians have scratched on ■ Katherine Fletcher, Capital Rambles: Royal Regiment of Foot, hard-bitten veter- this stony landscape, symbols of a most im- Exploring the National Capital Region, ans who’d opted to settle in Canada after the probable country. 2004. War of 1812-14, landing in the late summer of 1818 with their wives and children at this Robert Sibley is a senior writer with the ■ Terry Guernsey, Statues of Parliament spot to unload their Durham boats and Citizen. Hill: An Illustrated History, 1986.

■ Robert Haig, Ottawa: City of the Big Ears, n.d.

■ National Capital Commission, A Capital Adventure: A Discovery Guide to Canada’s Capital Region, and Street Smart: A guide to the art on the streets of Canada’s Capital Region.

■ Jane Lydon, “Driving By: Visiting Australian colonial monuments,” Journal of Social Archaeology, 5, 2005.

■ Susan Phillips-Desroches, Canada’s National War Memorial: Reflections of the Past or Liberal Dream? M.A. Thesis, Carleton University, 2002

■ John Roberts, Nation-Building and Monumentalization in the Contemporary Capital, M.A. thesis, Carleton University, 1999.

■ Marvin Trachtenberg, The Statue of Liberty, 1976.

■ Anthony Trollope, North America, Vol. 1, 1862.

■ Yi Fu Tuan, “Life as a Field Trip,” The Geographical Review, Jan.-April, 2001.

■ Kenneth Foote and Maoz Azaryahu, “Toward a Geography of Memory: Geographical Dimensions of Public Memory and Commemoration,” Journal of Political and Military Sociology, 35, 1, (Summer, 2007).

■ Philipp Fehl, The Classical Monument: Reflections on the Connection Between Morality and Art in Greek and Roman Sculpture, 1972.

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