Stone: the Capital's Monuments Are Writings on the Landscape
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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.