Celebrating the life of Queen Elizabeth II

The story goes that to honour the coronation of Canada’s new monarch in 1953, Arctic explorer Lt.-Col. Patrick Baird suggested that a peak that soared over Pangnirtung on Baffin Island be named Mount Queen Elizabeth. But, on further review, the proposal was turned down: in the estimation of Governor General Vincent Massey, it was said, the mountain wasn’t quite mighty enough.

That’s not to say Canada’s new Queen went uncommemorated in northern Canadian geography: Baird’s recommendations for naming Coronation Fiord and Coronation Glacier did go ahead in ’53. That June, Prime Minister Louis St. Laurent’s government announced a token of toponymic respect befitting the occasion, introducing Alberta’s new Queen Elizabeth Ranges, comprising 15 mountain peaks around Maligne Lake in Jasper National Park, the tallest of which, Mount Unwin, climbs beyond 3,200 metres.

“Enough beauty has gone into the composition of this area,” said Robert Winters, Canada’s minister of resources at the time, “to make a dozen regions famous.” In this case, the Queen herself approved the proposal.

Seventy years later, the year of the Queen’s Platinum Jubilee, her reign and the bonds she’s forged with Canadians continue to be reflected across the map of Canada.

Those of us who were on the Royal Tour in the spring of 2005 to celebrate the centenaries of Saskatchewan and Alberta remember the rain, the whipping wind and the plunging temperatures — but also the “stiff upper lip” of Queen Elizabeth II.

The Queen and Prince Philip were coming first to Regina for the unveiling of a statue on the grounds of the legislature to honour Burmese, the Queen’s horse that she rode for 18 consecutive years. Burmese, a filly, was not only the Queen’s favourite horse, but a local celebrity, having been bred at Maple Creek, west of the provincial capital. The Royal Canadian Mounted Police had given the horse as a gift to the Queen in 1969.

The Mounties, of course, wanted the outdoor event to go off without a hitch. They had even done a dry run with the horse-drawn landau that would take the Royal couple to the Queen Elizabeth Gardens by the Legislative Building, where the new gardens and the magnificent sculpture by Susan Velder was waiting to be unveiled. Knowing rain was certainly in the forecast, they did the dry run with the top up for protection.

The Queen would have none of it. “No, no, no,” she told the Mounties when she and Philip arrived at the start of the procession. “Top down.”

The people, many of them schoolchildren waving tiny flags, had come expecting to see their Queen and see her they would. She would, as always, do her duty.