Nationalism

Elgin Street - Ottawa's Champs-Élysées?

During his tenure as Prime Minister, Mackenzie King imagined Ottawa’s Elgin Street as the Canadian Champs-Élysées. He insisted on placing the National War Memorial at Elgin Street’s northern apex, to create a sort of Canadian Arc de Triomphe. Since the unveiling of the National War Memorial in 1939, Elgin Street has become a street where visitors can walk through dominant narratives of the nation; however, the street and its monuments also allow for the undoing of these same narratives. In this walk and talk, beginning at the National War Memorial we will explore how monuments along Elgin Street allow for the generation of multiple sets of memories, nostalgia, and challenges to nationalist narratives. We will visit various monuments along Elgin Street including the Oscar Peterson statue, the monuments in Confederation Park, the Canadian Tribute to Human Rights, and Enclave: The Women’s Monument.