Sir Galahad is a fictitious character, one of the Knights of the Round Table in Arthurian legend.
Sir Galahad
His statue near the corner of Wellington and Metcalfe honours the heroism of Henry Albert Harper, a journalist and close friend of William Lyon Mackenzie King, Canada’s prime minister for more than 20 years.
Inscribed in the statue’s granite rock base are the words “If I lose myself, I save myself,” a line spoken by Sir Galahad in The Holy Grail, by Alfred, Lord Tennyson.
These words are a testament to Harper, who heroically drowned days before his 28th birthday, while trying to save Bessie Blair, 19.
Blair fell through thin ice on the Ottawa River at a skating party on Dec. 6, 1901. As she began sinking from exhaustion, Harper disregarded his own safety, courageously slipping into the water after Blair.
With onlookers protesting the rescue efforts, he reportedly cried out, “What else can I do?” Other witnesses claim he borrowed Galahad’s line: “If I lose myself, I save myself.”
It was a heroic, but hopeless, act. Harper and Blair both drowned.
As a grief-stricken Ottawa grappled with the untimely deaths, King started a memorial fund for the statue project.
Four years later, Sir Galahad was unveiled on Nov. 18, 1905.
The statue faces south, with Parliament Hill at its back. From the ground, it’s hard to tell exactly where Sir Galahad’s eyes focus – but his stare into the heavens is intense, as downtown traffic rushes by.
His right hand clasps a sword with the left clutching the front of his cape against his heart. The cape ripples down Galahad’s long back and wraps around his left knee, as though blown by a wind only he can feel.
Tourists sometimes afford him a second look. Most people hurryingly pass by, missing the chance to know him and his story.