The nine-foot-tall bronze memorial known simply as First World War Soldier or the Bank of Montreal Monument is on the move after standing guard over Portage and Main for a century. It was unveiled in December 1923 to honour the men of the Bank of Montreal who died in battle.
It was announced in October 2024 that the memorial will be moved from Portage and Main to allow for the redevelopment of the intersection. It will not return there when the work is done as the Bank of Montreal sold its iconic Portage and Main banking hall to the Manitoba Metis Federation in 2020.
"Soldier" will instead be relocated to the Brookside Cemetery Field of Honour, one of Canada's oldest and largest military cemeteries. Brookside was declared a national historic site in 2023.
For more about the history of the monument, its artist, and its model, visit my Winnipeg Places blog post about it.
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