Remembrance Day is this Friday, and so it is a good time to reflect on a Vancouver icon with a C.P.R. connection.
Winged Victory, or “Angel of Victory” statue at Vancouver’s Waterfront Station is a Vancouver icon with the Canadian Pacific Railway company connection. The statue was commissioned and placed by the C.P.R. in 1921 to commemorate the 1,100 C.P.R. employees who lost their lives in the First World War. A plaque was added to the statue after World War II to commemorate the employees lost in that war as well. The statue, weighing 3,000 pounds, was sculpted by Coeur de Lion MacCarthy who was born in London but moved to Montreal in 1918. As explained on the History of Metropolitan Vancouver, the scratch marks on the statue originate from some well-meaning locals who gave the statue a scrubbing in 1967, not understanding that the “dirt” was actually part of the patina that develops naturally on bronze statues. As featured earlier this year on the Miss 604 blog, many stunning photos of the “Angel of Victory” can be found on Flickr if you are unable to visit it in person.
Both C.P.R. employees and ships participated in both World Wars- try searching the Chung Collection for the keywords “world war” for related records.
If you would like to join UBC students, faculty and staff for our Remembrance Day service, details are available here.
The photo above is courtesy of Flickr user BriYYZ and is used under a Creative Commons License.