Bytown Museum
This 1916 photograph shows the aftermath of the fire on Parliament Hill.Nearly 100 years after fire burned the Centre Block of Canada’s original Parliament Buildings to the ground in February 1916, the Bytown Museum has put together a temporary exhibit to showcase the story.
“We wanted to tell the story of the space we now know as Parliament Hill and what it was before,” says Grant Vogl, the museum’s collections and exhibition manager.
Forged in Fire: The Building and Burning of Parliament opens in conjunction with Winterlude on Jan. 29.
The exhibit examines the history of the site and the buildings that have called it home since the 1860’s. Vogl says it looks at Parliament Hills history from Pre-European era until the Peace Tower – erected post-fire – was complete in 1925.
Preparation for the exhibit has taken two years with the help of members of the museum studies program at Algonquin College, he says. “I take it from an idea right to mounting it on the wall,” says Vogl.
He compiled research for the project, wrote texts, designed panels, chose artifacts and even installed everything. The whole thing is “completely done inhouse,” he says.
The exhibit features artifacts and “very rare” images of the construction of Parliament by early Ottawa photographer Elihu Spencer.
The museum focuses on “prints, drawings and photographs,” because that’s “how the space works best for us,” Vogl says. “It helps with the interpretation.”
The exhibit features photographs of the fire and the rebuilding process along with borrowed documents from city archives, he says.
Artifacts include copper ashtrays made from the roof of the original structure before it burned down as well as architectural stone elements on loan from the Canadian Museum of History.
Images are very important to the exhibit because “photos tell stories,” says Vogl.
Archeologist Nadine Kopp, who oversaw a variety of digs on the site, also recognized the importance of photographs and watercolour paintings in understanding the history of Parliament Hill.
According to Vogl about half of the exhibit is dedicated to the 1916 fire while the rest looks at the construction and the rebuilding.
According to historian Don Nixon in his book The Other Side of the Hill, the cause of the fire is still debated. It could have been careless smoking or perhaps intentional arson. As for Nixon, “I think it was deliberate,” he says in his book.
Seven people died in the fire and it was four years until Parliament could resume on the Hill in February 1920.
In the meantime, politicians met at the Victoria Museum, which now houses the Canadian Museum of Nature.
Vogl says that most older people remember learning about the fire but the museum’s goal is “to make sure that the story is still being told.”
The Hill also has a lot of history before the construction of Parliament.
Vogl wanted the exhibit to show the fact that “Parliament wasn’t always there.”
The Hill was used by Colonel By and his engineers as a military barrack when the canal was being built, he says.
Kopp uncovered some of that history on Parliament Hill in the form of dinnerware, wineglasses and animal bones recovered from the site over the generations.
“Before the canal, there was no reason for Ottawa to be a city,” she says.
The goal of the exhibit is to “teach people things they didn’t know about,” says Vogl.
According to him, there has already been quite a bit of interest.
Although there is no formal opening planned, the museum may host an official launch at some point.
The exhibit runs until Oct. 31.