The following letter was submitted by Bruce McRae, an Orillia history enthusiast who has spoken on various topics of local historical interest and has served on the boards of Orillia Museum of Art and History, Historical Societies, and Municipal Committees including Municipal Heritage and the Wall of Fame.
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As I understand it, Parks Canada’s plan to deal with the monument involves ‘cropping’ the six component pieces from one of Canada’s grandest works of public art and ‘pasting’ them elsewhere in Couchiching Beach Park.
If a significant work by an artist genius such as Vernon March ceases to be his expression, then arguably it ceases to be art.
When Orillia Town Council planned for a monument to Champlain, March was only 19 years of age. He would have one memorial in both South Africa and Ireland but not live to see the unveiling of only his fourth statue - the stunning National War Memorial.
How can future students of art appreciate masterpieces if dismembered for political messaging?
Despite what many commentators assert, Orillia’s Champlain Monument by that young Briton is strictly the 300th anniversary commemoration of 1615-16. Attribution beyond end the Wendat/French era in ‘Huronia’ beyond 1649, conflation with Anishinaabe/English colonization two centuries later, or association with repressive post-Confederation policies likely beyond this young Briton’s perception, is lacking context.
The issue with Orillia’s Champlain is arguably a failure of curators and narrators – not the sculptor.
There is a solution. As I will get to, Orillians have an opportunity to change the only monument in Canada relevant to Anishinaabe/English colonization. The appropriate monument solution I am referring to is not Champlain.
Before the damage is irrevocable, one should more fully appreciate the design of the existing Commerce and Christianity faces of the Orillia Champlain Monument. All stakeholders should know some consequences of proceeding with separating the four Wendat men, the ‘trader’, and the Recollet Friar.
Folklore has it that the Dutch purchased Manhattan in 1609 from the Lenape First Nations for beads and trinkets. On the south-facing side of the Champlain monument (the ‘Commerce face’), there is a trader (likely Etienne Brûlé) depicted in 1615 beside two seated Wendat. One Wendat figure is shown holding an axe - a highly valued trade item for communities that had 8-metre-tall palisaded walls of one kilometre in length.
The Wendat trader is offering a pipe to the French trader to willingly consummate a deal. Few take note that along with the furs received, Brûlé is left holding the valueless beads after the deal is complete.
Only if intact, our ‘Commerce face’ depicts fair trade through the symbolism of the sharing of the pipe between these traders of differing cultures.
Inter-cultural relations were respectful. In 1610, a teenaged Brûlé had sought Champlain's permission to live among the Algonquin 'Petite Nation'.
They wintered with the Wendat near modern-day Orillia.
Savignon, a young Wendat, joined Champlain in his travels to France over the winter of 1610-11. Each of these young men learning of each other's cultures, language and much more.
Savignon’s travels in France are unclear, but if he accompanied his host Champlain in his travels to Paris, that young man from eastern ‘Huronia’ could have seen then existent architectural marvels.
The stunning Notre Dame Cathedral that we all recently watched in horror as the roof burned could have been visited by that Wendat youth over 400 years ago. Brûlé would ultimately be first to taste the waters of four out of five of New France’s inexplicable fresh-water seas.
Only if intact, can the tale of such inter-cultural milestones such as Brûlé and Savignon be told.
On the opposite side of the monument (the ‘Christianity face’), Recollet Friar Joseph le Caron is depicted with a cross held high with one hand and a Bible in another. One seated Wendat man beside him is cast looking towards the Friar’s Bible in pensive thought.
The actual le Caron created the first dictionaries for the languages spoken by the Wendat, Algonquin and Montagnais Nations. It is noteworthy to point out that this generation may be among the first Indigenous Peoples with the opportunity to learn reading and writing under le Caron’s instruction.
Only if intact, our ‘Christianity face’ can portray the exchange of language and the sharing of the skill of reading with the Wendat man looking towards the Bible.
Champlain encouraged unions between French and Indigenous Peoples. Both the Recollet and later Jesuit would sanctify marriages. It would be six decades after the French founded New France that unmarried women from France known as 'Les Filles du Roi' would arrive.
A significant proportion of original French families were thereby of mixed ancestry. Under Jesuit rules, in the 1630s it was conceivable for Wendat to get French citizenship. Astonishing in that time!
New France stood in absolute contrast to the often-atrocious actions of other explorers of the Caribbean, Central and South America following Columbus. The horrors of human commodities exported to Virginia from Africa would start in 1619 merely three years after the time depicted by the Monument. New France was different.
Comments by some impassioned critics such as “cowering” or “kneeling” are difficult to see either cast in bronze or by historical records of 1615-16.
Only if intact, can the rare absence of inter-cultural animus within the New World be contextualized by the muscular Wendat and the comparatively enfeebled French.
Champlain would support his Wendat and Algonquin allies in their attack against the Oneida of the Iroquois Confederacy. In having personally visited the obscure location of the battle site of the invasion that set forth from Orillia in 1615, I found the plaque in which their curator makes the expansive statement, “… The battle that took place here in 1615 is termed by some as the most decisive battle in American history. For it was here that the question of whether America north of the Rio Grande was to become English or French territory was decided.”
Contrast that account to muted description of the same event as curated by Parks Canada in the Orillia plaque reading, “… Setting off from Cahiague near present-day Orillia on September 1, 1615, Champlain accompanied a Huron party travelling south to attack the Iroquois at Lake Oneida, New York. Champlain was wounded in the ensuing battle and was brought back to Huronia where he spent the winter of 1616 recovering”.
Only if intact, can a far more insightful narration bring to life that point of historical inflection when those united allies attacked at Lake Oneida. The resultant ‘Beaver Wars’ had a profound impact upon the history of North America, and especially a devasting impact upon First Nations.
The Champlain Award Jury’s runner up to March’s design in October 1914 had four Wendat, Champlain and Brûlé planning their attack against the Oneida. How different a message it would have made. War not peace.
During the week the Award Jury made the final selection in favour of March’s Commerce/Christianity themed monument to the Father of New France, Orillia and area soldiers were landing in England for engagement in defence of France. That war would be renowned for its transformative weaponry of artillery, gas, aeroplanes, tanks, dirigibles and submarines.
The members of the Award Jury would have been very aware of the arguably more impactful ‘Beaver Wars’ following Lake Oneida with the introduction of guns to the Iroquois.
Whereas western Europe would be largely unchanged by WW1, early American historians likened the vast territorial expansion of the Iroquoian Five Nations using European weapons to that of the ‘Roman Empire’.
Only if intact, does the gun on the trader’s back that is not being used as an article of trade have relevance to the catastrophic fate of the Wenro, Neutral, Petun, Erie, Wendat and numerous others to follow.
I find it disconcerting that these features are completely lost on the majority of viewers as they have not been told of the inter-dependency of those figures the sculptor embodied in bronze. There are countless other great stories of adventure and intrigue to colour the history of New France that were never properly told and may soon be lost.
In drawing a comparison to a literary masterpiece, it is inconceivable to tear controversial chapters from a book and to deny future generations of readers access to an authentic work, yet that is an equivalence to what lies ahead.
This is art. It is neither rearranging components like a ‘Mr. Potato-Head’, nor a revision to a textbook. Authenticity matters.
Parks Canada, the Working Group and Mayor/Council are in the process of making an irreversible mistake before our eyes? They are using the Champlain Monument in Ottawa as a guide.
Like Orillia however, the issue with Ottawa’s Champlain was arguably a failure of curators and narrators – not the sculptor.
The year 1913 had marked the 300th anniversary of Champlain passing the future Ottawa with Anishinaabe guides and two canoes. With the First World War approaching, funds were not available to complete the canoe for the Anishinaabe figure cast in the kneeling position of a canoeist.
Ottawa’s Champlain Monument first had the French navigator with his astrolabe installed alone on the plinth at Ottawa. Equally relevant would have been the guide with his canoe.
Despite eight decades to complete the monument and/or to correct the festering misunderstanding, this figure would become derogatively known as “the kneeling Indian”.
Although posed as a canoeist, the canoe was never cast. Its posture was described by some as “deferential”. In 1996, custodians removed the ‘would-be’ canoeist and it was rebranded it as a “scout”. Lauded as 'progress' by some, the land-based scout is a false narrative to that canoeing expedition.
While this decision may well now be somewhat out of this community’s hands, I would argue that there is a much more appropriate solution.
In Couchiching Beach Park is said to stand the only monument in Canada with a plaque commemorating the “Surrender of Indians Lands”. This squared column and plaque are located just south of the Champlain worksite, within the centre of the children’s playground.
This, alone, is relevant to the advent of British colonialism upon Anishinaabe land. It is the appropriate monument to change. It is of direct relevance to ancestors of the Nations led by Chiefs Yellowhead, Assance and Snake who served with the British in the War of 1812.
On it, the treaties of 1798, 1815, and 1818 are listed and the various groups of settlers to receive “grants” are mentioned. This astonishing plaque to Anishinaabe Land Surrender is the far more historically relevant public display for the recontextualizing events specific to the 19th and 20th centuries.
Events surrounding the war years 1812-1815 and British policy thereafter do not pertain to New France nor the monument of Champlain of 1615-16. The Land Surrender Monument alone should have the three remaining sides of the column used to rightfully describe the inequities within a British Colony and post-Confederation Canada.
There is no work of any artist to alter.
The Champlain Monument should be left specific to Wendat/French of 1615-16 as designed. It should be restored, and the decades of misunderstanding of Champlain/New France/Wendat be corrected through education and interpretative plaques.
Completely within municipal control, the City of Orillia has the unique ability to designate that playground in the spirit of reconciliation and friendship that Orillians sincerely feel towards our respected neighbours.
Before it is irreversible – we require suasion at the local and federal level to change the appropriate monument – not the tragically misunderstood Champlain Monument as it existed before Parks Canada’s “restoration”.
The latter should remain both intact and, finally, understood.
Bruce McRae
Orillia
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