Postcard Memories is a weekly series of historic postcard views and photos submitted by Marcel Rousseau.
Some were previously published by the Orillia Museum of Art and History and in the book Postcard Memories Orillia.
Postmarked June 28, 1915 this view of Couchiching Park showing a circular hedge with a flower garden in its centre, is where the Champlain Monument was to be erected.
After a trip in 1912 to Quebec City and St. John N.B., Harold Hale, publisher of The Packet & Times, decided that Orillia should have its own monument to Samuel de Champlain.
A monument committee was formed and after a trip to Ottawa and a meeting with Sir. Thomas White, Minister of Finance, a grant of $12,500 was received. Vernon March, a young sculptor from England, won the design competition and the monument was supposed to be completed and erected by August 1915 as this postcard states.
Because of the war it was another 10 years before the monument was completed. The final cost was $35,000 but any complaints were drowned out by the 18,000 people gathered at the park for the public unveiling and elaborate celebrations on July 1, 1925.
