Tours Inside the Snow Globe

Taken together, Ottawa’s monuments comprise a network that tells stories of national significance. They fill the city with symbols of Canada’s past as if it were a diorama — something like a snow globe. 

The book Tours Inside the Snow Globe shakes the city up, animating the histories of Ottawa’s statues like a flurry of snowflakes. Carleton University associate professor Tonya K. Davidson’s interest in urban spaces, public memory, and Canadian identity informs her deep dive into the multiplicity of messages found in the National Capital Region’s public monuments. 

Davidson does this through a series of walking tours that examine the relationships between the city’s public space and what it means to be Canadian: Who is represented, how, and why? By exploring these questions through historical sources, Davidson highlights how statues both construct and challenge visions of national identity. 

One of the seven tours is led by a statue of Laura Secord that has come to life to explore Parliament Hill and the surrounding area. On Secord’s walk she passes a monument to the “Famous Five” women who fought for the recognition of women as persons — but who are known as “imperfect heroines” to some and as “feminist racists” to others. 

At times challenging, but always engaging, Davidson’s book takes Ottawa off its pedestal to give readers a closer look at the rich histories its monuments can reveal.