New museum to offer a diverse picture of war
CTV.ca News Staff
Housed in a striking new building, the Canadian War Museum in Ottawa hopes to tell both the glorious and shameful stories of the nation's military past when it officially opens this weekend.
"Our task is to show how Canadians have conducted themselves in war," says Laura Brandon, the museum's curator. "To show how it has brutalized some and how it has produced heroes in other respects... and how it reflects the complexity of the human condition in military times."
The complexity is evident in an abstract portrait of Kyle Brown, a private who was convicted of manslaughter in the torture and killing of a Somali teenager in 1993. That incident remains a stain on Canada's peacekeeping record.
"If you look at his hands, he's got a black cube in one hand and a white cube in the other hand, which symbolize the choices he could have made," Brandon says.
There are 24 such portraits. Brown's is in the first gallery visitors will enter at the museum.
Such attempts to challenge visitors and provoke discussion are found throughout the museum. But there are also scenes that simply touch the heart.
During the First World War, a young girl gave her daddy a teddy bear to help him stay safe overseas.
But the good wishes accompanying the bear weren't enough. The man died in 1917. His grave's location is unknown.
"He was a medic. He was on the field of battle, caring for a soldier. He was killed by shrapnel," says Tim Cook, a museum employee.
"When his body was found, they pulled the teddy bear off his body and sent it back to his family."
That bear is on display at the museum.
Historically, the museum covers the bow-and-arrow wars fought before Europeans arrive to the possibility of a missile-delivered thermonuclear apocalypse.
"This is your museum, your story, your legacy. This is about Canada," says Joe Geurts, the museum's director.
Upon leaving one gallery, visitors are encouraged to send a comment on pre-addressed postcards to political leaders, activists and even soldiers.
"It's a way to make people realize that their history is something that's not over; that history continues," Geurts says. "And if you want to contribute in your own way, a postcard is a very simple way to do that."
The museum cost $135 million, which experts say is a relative bargain compared to other museums around the world of its size and importance.
One example of the care paid to the design was one small room, empty except for the gravestone that marked where Canada's Unknown Soldier was buried in France during the First World War. There is one small window on the opposite wall.
On November 11, the light will shine through the window and directly illuminate that gravestone.
The opening ceremonies take place this coming weekend. Sunday marks the day the museum is officially opened. That date coincides with the 60th anniversary of V-E Day, the end of the Second World War in Europe.
With reports from CTV's David Akin and CJOH's Norman Fetterley
