Military Monuments On The Island

 In June, I headed up to the Rideau Falls for a visit. Here, the Rideau River splits into two channels around Green Island, and spills over to meet the Ottawa River. This is the west channel. Both channels are regulated by dam works, and this one tends to have less flow.

Over on the far shore of the Ottawa River is Gatineau, and the wooded stretch we see is Leamy Lake Park.

There are a number of monuments, most of them military in nature, on Green Island, and on the east shore of the Rideau River. The first we encounter is the National Artillery Memorial, which commemorates the service of the Royal Regiment of Artillery in particular.

Beside it is another monument to the Canadian doctor, poet, and soldier John McCrae, who fought in the South African War and World War One, and whose poem In Flanders Fields lives on, transcending national boundaries.

The statue is by Ruth Abernethy, one of a pair of the man, and larger than life. Its twin is in McCrae's home town of Guelph, at the city's civic museum.

A look across to the far side of the space. More monuments are over there.

One of them is this one. This commemorates the veterans of the Mackenzie-Papineau Battalion, a group of Canadian volunteers who fought in the Spanish Civil War against the fascists.