Four and a half years ago, Maj.-Gen. Sir Isaac Brock moved onto a piece of prime real estate, across the street from the Fairmont Chateau Laurier. He’s resided in that space, facing the National War Memorial ever since.
Brock is in the middle of four other busts, each representing a period of war in Canadian history. The figures circle a staircase down to the Rideau Canal. Beside the busts reads a line from Virgil, which translated from Latin to English reads “No day will ever erase you from the memory of time.”
Brock has a university as a namesake – Brock University in St. Catharines, Ont., and History also credits him with organizing the defence of Canada against a much bigger American invasion during the War of 1812.
In 1812, the United States invaded British Canada. Canada looked like easy pickings to the larger American armies. But Brock had seen this coming. He built up defences at Quebec, made an alliance with the Shawnee chief Tecumseh, and at the war’s opening, took the city of Detroit. He would die in an American push across the Niagara River, but his defence protected Canada in the first days of the war. Canada would go on to burn the White House before ending the war.
Brock is in black metal, wearing a big half-circle hat, a ruffle at his neck and two lines of big buttons running from his shoulders down.