Building for a New Canada / Construire un nouveau Canada

English: , Standing here in 1860, you would have heard the sound of hammers and the creak of winches from across the river as construction began on Canada's Parliament Buildings. As recently as 1857, Canadians had been embroiled in a raging debate over the choice of a permanent capital. When Queen Victoria finally chose Ottawa , a ramshackle town in the middle of nowhere , politicians howled for reversal of the decision. The Governor General wrote glumly of exile to the wilderness. An American journalist joked that invaders would get lost in the forest trying to find Canada's capital. In fact, Ottawa was a brilliant choice, standing at the confluence of English and French cultures., A Canal through the Wilderness , In 1826, the Royal Engineers and two companies of the Royal Sappers and Miners arrived in the Canadian wilderness with orders to build the Rideau Canal. Sleeping in tents at first, they later moved into stone barracks of a British military depot on what is today Parliament Hill., Canada’s First Parliament Buildings , In 1916, a great fire destroyed the central building of Canada's original Parliament Buildings. Only the big circular library survived., Laying the Cornerstone , Copy of the ceremonial trowel used in 1860 to lay the first stone of the government buildings of the Province of Canada (Parliament Buildings). [missing from marker],