personal
photo galleries
search
for more information contact skot@penguinstorm.com
Sir Galahad and Peace Tower
The official history from the National Capital Commission of the Sir Galahad statue:
Henry Albert Harper, a young civil servant, and a close friend and colleague of William Lyon Mackenzie King, lost his life while trying to save a young woman, Bessie Blair, from drowning after falling through thin ice while skating on the Ottawa River. King helped to select the monument's theme since both Harper and King were inspired by Tennyson's Idyll's of the King, particularly the ideals of Sir Galahad. King also wrote a book entitled The Secret of Heroism about his friend's heroic sacrifice. The funds for the statue were raised by public subscription and the artist chosen was the American sculptor Ernest Wise Keyser.
Henry Harper's courageous act of trying to save a drowning Bessie Blair from the freezing waters of the Ottawa River is honoured with the statue of Sir Galahad. Mackenzie King proposed that the memorial should not be a portrait statue, but should derive its inspiration from Harper's favourite painting of Sir Galahad, thus taking instead "the form of a figure symbolical of heroism and nobility of character."
