OrilliaMatters welcomes letters to the editor at [email protected]. Please include your daytime phone number and address (for verification of authorship, not publication). In July of 2019, it was announced the controversial Samuel de Champlain statue would be returning to Couchiching Beach Park. The statue has not returned, prompting this letter.
Has anyone heard from Sam Champlain since he disappeared from Couchiching Park? Odd that he wouldn't leave a forwarding address. But I checked at the Post Office and they're just hanging onto all his hate mail.
Too bad he was implicated in the dreadful residential school horrors that occurred centuries after his travels through these parts.
You would think having nothing whatsoever to do with the offence would be a mitigating circumstance.
I thought maybe he'd show up one night at a WWE event. At 12-feet-tall, he could have given Andre the Giant a thorough working over. Not sure what the rules say about seven-foot-long swords. But swinging that bilbo, he'd be the last man standing in any free-for-all.
But, sadly, our missing hero, has made no appearances in the wrestling ring, or anywhere else. Orillia's bronze giant has really gone to ground.
The official story, always a little fishy, was that he needed to be taken away to get cleaned up.
Sure he's a big fellow — with a mess of seagull droppings in his hair — but how many years does he have to stand in the shower?
We need to find him, towel him off, oil his spurs and bring him home.
I really miss the big guy.
Colin McKim
Orillia
