Views From The High Ground

Here on Parliament Hill is the Summer Pavilion, a lovely structure for a break and taking in the views.

Nearby, a series of panels, and room for more. This is the Canadian Police And Peace Officers Memorial. Names are inscribed of officers who have fallen in the line of duty. Each September, there is a national service of remembrance here.

Here we see West Block. At present, the House of Commons is meeting inside.

There is a rise of land overlooking both Centre and West Block, the highest ground on the Hill. Queen Victoria has a statue here.

Nearby, another of our great prime ministers, Lester Pearson.

To the west, the Confederation and Justice Blocks, and the Supreme Court. 

And we finish with a statue of Prime Minister Robert Borden.

Capital

 This is a model of Queen Victoria, who selected Ottawa initially to be the capital of the United Canadas, and subsequently the capital of the country as a whole when Confederation made the Canadian colonies into a country of its own.

A capital meant the building of Parliament.

Some said she pointed at a map and that's how the capital was chosen. Others said she looked at art sent to her of the region. Realistically, with its place at the boundary between the former Upper and Lower Canada, and its place some distance from the American border, Ottawa made sense for the capital.

These are items from the old Russell Hotel.

There had been a trend of moving capitals around in the colonies before Ottawa was settled on. Now the governor-general would come to town.

This dress belonged to Lady Minto, wife to Lord Minto, one of the governor-generals.

The Victorian era was transformative, as well as contradictory.

Sarah Olmstead had immigrated to Canada, where in 1808 she married Philemon Wright II. His father founded what is now Hull. He died a few years later. Sarah subsequently married Nicholas Sparks, who bought land that was subsequently made use of for the Rideau Canal. An unknown artist completed a portrait of her late in life, and it resides here.

Library Annex

 Doors Open is a program held on weekends across the province in cities and towns from April into October each year. In Ottawa, the first weekend of June is set aside for it, with numerous sites across the city limits. I was only able to get to a couple of sites this year, but was glad to at least see some of it. 

Sparks Street was my first stop. The former main branch of the Bank of Nova Scotia is here. For years now it has been an annex branch for the Library of Parliament on Parliament Hill, which is one block north. It is open to Parliamentarians and their staff during the year, but the public can visit on this weekend. With the work going on around Centre Block, it is currently the main branch of the Library.

The beautiful architecture outside is matched by the interior, which has contemporary infrastructure that works well with the older architecture. Shelving contains numerous books- just a fraction of what Parliament's library contains. This is, after all, only one of the annex branches.

The former branch manager's office is worth a stop, with its woodwork doors and fireplace.

The painting on the wall is The Parliamentary Library, Ottawa, by Anthony Batten. Dating to 2020, it features the Library on the Hill, currently inaccessible. A statue of Queen Victoria is lit by daylight sun. The Library saw rehabilitation work done early in the century, so is not really part of the work on Centre Block. However, one has to go through Centre Block to get to it, which is why it's inaccessible during the project. A staff member said that the statue of the Queen is the only item in there at the present. The books and other movable items have all been moved off site.

This is a bust of King Edward VII.

The building architect, John Lyle, did other projects around the country and beyond.

Since the beginning of the century, Parliament has had a tradition of a poet laureate. Some of them are seen, with a hint of their poetry, along the book cases.

Upon The Hill

 The tulips continue along Wellington as I entered the Parliamentary precinct.

Crossing the street brings us to the Hill. There are six Parliamentary blocks in all, five of them on the Hill itself. The sixth is seen at right, and houses the offices of the Prime Minister and his staff. At centre is a statue honouring Henry Harper, a journalist and civil servant who died in December 1901 trying to save the life of a woman who fell through the ice on the Ottawa River.

I went onto the Hill, where there were more tulips in planters.

My path led me west of Centre Block, where there is a rise of land and two statues. The first is Queen Victoria, and at the time of this May visit, she was surrounded by tulips.

Beyond is a statue honouring Lester Pearson, who along with Mackenzie King was one of our greatest prime ministers.

Departing, I noticed the lilac blossoms overlooking the Ottawa River.