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

CHRIS MIKULA, THE CITIZEN Sculptor Joseph-Emile Brunet’s statue of Col. By in Major Hill’s Park looking across the 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 ? 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. , 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 ) 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, . 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 . 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 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 , 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.

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