Early on the morning of Wednesday, November 11th, 2015, a metal monument in the shape of a poppy appeared on the riverbanks of the Red River, in Selkirk.
The entire monument was built from scraps of the MS Lord Selkirk II, which sat abandoned in the Red River since the 1990s. After years of the boat degrading while sitting in the Selkirk slough Ben Hoosier and his company, SaskSteel, were tasked with removing disassembling the ship and removing it from the Red River. This work commenced in September 2015 and took several months to complete.
Ben Hoosier built the Remembrance Day monument in the dark on November 10th using his car’s headlights. It took him about 5 hours to create the 3 meters tall statue, that weighs about 2,000 pounds. No welding was involved as the monument was carved from one piece of metal.
The monument depicts a red poppy, with a green stem, and the word ‘Remember’. The base of the piece was made from part of the hull. The poppy and the word ‘Remember’ were carved from an edge piece of the ballroom floor that connected with the hull.
The original intention was for the monument to only be up for November 11th and 12th. Then it too would be destroyed and taken away to a junk yard with the rest of the MS Lord Selkirk II. But the monument still remains in Selkirk today, visible to anyone passing by the Selkirk Legion #42.
In 2016 the Legion had the paint touched up and moved the statue closer to the street. Due to space issues, the Legion had to remove the bottom portion of the piece. The statue is located in the side yard of the Legion, visible from the corner of Eveline Street and Morris Avenue, where a bed of poppies surrounds the monument.
Sources
Hull from decayed ship used to craft monument of remembrance in Selkirk | CTV News
Remembrance Day monument made of metal from MS Lord Selkirk | CBC News
