Ottawa's neighbour across the river has made a low-key but notable move in the ongoing national conversation about historical monuments. The City of Gatineau has quietly reinstalled its statue of 17th-century explorer and Quebec City founder Samuel de Champlain, nearly ten years after it was removed for what was described as routine maintenance work.
For Ottawa residents who regularly cross the interprovincial bridges into Gatineau for dinner, a bike ride along the river pathways, or a visit to the Canadian Museum of History, the statue's return adds a familiar landmark back into the shared landscape of the National Capital Region. While Champlain is most closely associated with Quebec City, his broader legacy as an early European explorer of the Ottawa River and the surrounding region gives the monument real relevance on this side of the provincial border too — Champlain famously paddled the Ottawa River in the early 1600s, making him part of the area's earliest recorded European history.
A Decade-Long Absence
The statue's removal roughly ten years ago for maintenance came without much fanfare, and its return has followed a similarly quiet path. There was no major unveiling ceremony or public announcement — residents and passersby simply noticed the familiar bronze figure back in place. That understated approach stands out given how charged the topic of historical statues has become across the country in recent years.
Part of a Wider Statue Debate
Gatineau's decision lands amid a much broader, ongoing debate in Canada over how cities should handle monuments tied to colonial history. Ottawa itself has been at the centre of this conversation, most notably with the statue of Sir John A. Macdonald that was removed from City Hall grounds in 2021 and remains in storage while officials weigh next steps on commemoration and historical context. Other cities across Ontario and Quebec have faced similar questions about which historical figures deserve public commemoration, and how much context should accompany statues of colonial-era figures.
Champlain, unlike some other historical figures recently reassessed, is generally viewed less controversially — he's remembered primarily as an explorer and cartographer rather than a figure tied directly to policies affecting Indigenous communities in the way later colonial administrators were. Still, his reinstallation arrives at a moment when any move involving a historical statue draws scrutiny, making Gatineau's low-profile approach notable in itself.
Why It Matters on This Side of the River
For the many Ottawa-area residents who treat the National Capital Region as one connected community — biking the pathways along both sides of the Ottawa River, catching events in the Byward Market and downtown Gatineau alike — small changes to the shared urban landscape tend to get noticed. The Champlain statue's return is a reminder of just how intertwined Ottawa and Gatineau's histories and public spaces remain, even as each city navigates its own version of the national reckoning with monuments and memory.
As Ottawa continues to sort out the future of its own removed statues, Gatineau's quiet reinstallation offers one example of how a neighbouring city chose to resolve a similar question — with minimal ceremony and no formal public consultation announced.
Source: CBC Ottawa
