The Valiants Memorial (French: Monument aux Valeureux) is a military monument located in Ottawa, Ontario, Canada. It commemorates fourteen key figures from the military history of Canada. Dedicated by Governor General Michaëlle Jean on 5 November 2006,[2] the work consists of nine busts and five statues, all life-sized, by artists Marlene Hilton Moore and John McEwen.[3]

Valiants Memorial
Monument aux Valeureux
Canadian Heritage, National Capital Commission, Valiants Foundation[1]
Five busts on the west side of the memorial represent each of the five military periods
For fourteen key figures from the military history of the country
Unveiled5 November 2006
Location
Designed byMarlene Hilton Moore, John McEwen

The monument was installed around the Sappers Staircase, an underpass on the northeastern corner of Confederation Square, adjacent to the National War Memorial. The wall of the staircase is decorated with a quotation from the Aeneid by Virgil:[4]

"Nulla dies umquam memori vos eximet aevo"[5]

which translates to "No day will ever erase you from the memory of time" (French: Aucun jour ne t'effacera jamais de la mémoire du temps).

The heroes commemorated in the monument are:

Hero Type Image
Le comte de Frontenac bust
Pierre Le Moyne d'Iberville statue
Hero Type Image
Thayendanegea (Joseph Brant) statue
John Butler bust
Hero Type Image
Major-General Sir Isaac Brock, KB bust
Charles de Salaberry statue
Laura Secord statue
Hero Type Image
Georgina Pope bust
General Sir Arthur Currie, GCMG, KCB statue
Corporal Joseph Kaeble, VC, MM bust
Hero Type Image
Lieutenant Robert Hampton Gray, VC, DSC bust
Captain John Wallace Thomas, CBE bust
Major Paul Triquet, VC, CD bust
Pilot Officer Andrew Mynarski, VC bust

References

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  1. ^ "Valiants Memorial Unveiled" (Press release). Government of Canada. 6 November 2006. Retrieved 26 March 2017.
  2. ^ Bill Curry (6 November 2006). "Memorial marks valiant efforts". The Globe and Mail. Retrieved 26 March 2017.
  3. ^ "Valiants Memorial". Canadian Heritage, Government of Canada. 7 June 2016. Archived from the original on 16 September 2017. Retrieved 26 March 2017.
  4. ^ David Williams (2009). Media, Memory, and the First World War. McGill-Queen's Studies in the History of Ideas, 48. Montreal, Kingston, London, Ithaca: McGill-Queen's University Press. pp. 286–287. ISBN 978-0-7735-3507-7.
  5. ^ Vergilius, Aeneis, IX, 447 :
    Fortunati ambo! si quid mea carmina possunt, (446)
    nulla dies umquam memori vos eximet aevo, (447)
    dum domus Aeneae Capitoli immobile saxum (448)
    accolet imperiumque pater Romanus habebit. (449)
    The same verse, in an English translation, is now engraved on a wall in the 9/11 Memorial Museum in New York: "No day shall erase you from the memory of time".
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