Victory Peace

My name is John McEwen and I'm the sculptor and the artist that made "Victory Peace" the commemorative work here in Coronation Park that celebrates and commemorates all Canadians that participated and contributed to the 2nd World War effort. And the work was made on its 50th anniversary of the ending of the 2nd World War. The interesting thing that you'll see about the work is that it has 2 major distinctions and these distinctions are "at home" and "overseas".

So the major feature of the work is 2 sets of gates. And the first set that looks out on the water, is the Gate of Departure. And this gate is, sort of, in the form of a sprit-bow of a ship. And there's an equal form on the other side of the amphitheater, and this is the Gate of Return. So you have the idea of going away and you have the idea of coming home.

And on the ground, tucked in or sheltered by this set of gates is a big maple leaf with the word "Hope" on it. So it looks very general in comparison to the gate of departure, 'cause if you walk back to the Gate of Departure what you see is two walls. On one wall are all of the events that took place on the ocean, and if you look at the other wall you see the list of all the training fields for the various air forces that came to Canada to learn pilot skills. So you see those bases stretched all the way across Canada. So what you're trying to set up is the idea that the contribution of this idea of a war effort took place, obviously by the men and women that went overseas, but also by those who stayed behind.

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