The Golden Boy, carrying his sheaf of gleaming wheat, has been bounding optimistically into Manitoba’s future for 82 years.
But now this symbol of the province’s hope for agriculture could come plummeting off the roof of the legislature.
Restoration work on the dome of the Manitoba legislature has revealed that the Golden Boy is badly corroded inside. The foot he prances upon and the nut and bolt that hold it in place are rusting away.
“We’ve moved a little bit beyond fillings and root canals and may have to do some surgery on our most recognizable symbol,” said government services minister Steve Ashton.
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The Golden Boy isn’t going to fall off the roof in the next few months, Ashton said, but if left too long, it could end up crashing out of the sky, like a prairie Icarus.
The Golden Boy was commissioned during the First World War from a French sculptor.
The foundry where it was cast was blown up by German artillery, but the statue survived.
It was put on a ship for Canada in 1918, but the ship was diverted into convoy duty and the 4,536 kilogram Golden Boy lay at the bottom of the ship, as ballast, until the war ended.
After finally reaching Winnipeg, it was hoisted atop the newly completed legislature in 1920. Since then it has shone through years of warm Manitoba sunshine, bounded through brutal prairie blizzards and carried its sheaf of wheat continuously.
But the Manitoba weather has finally gotten to the boy.
The original restoration plan was to regild the boy, which had turned a little blue. But when corrosion was discovered on the anchor bolt, restoration experts began using X-rays and surgical cameras to determine the extent of the damage.
Ashton said a model of the corroded Golden Boy will be tested in a wind tunnel in the next few weeks. Experts will then decide whether the statue can be repaired on top of the legislature or whether it must be taken down and repaired on the ground.
The Manitoba government announced the Golden Boy’s plight at a special news conference. It was front page news in Winnipeg.
Ashton said Manitobans are fond of the Golden Boy and the government was worried that if it didn’t inform the public about his problems, rumours would leak out and sow discord amongst the people.
“I get more questions on this than any other issue,” said Ashton, who is also minister of transportation.
“We’re going to come up with a plan to keep the Golden Boy there for hundreds more years.”
Ashton acknowledged that many people no longer see wheat as a golden commodity carrying the province into a prosperous future.
“I think the price is probably about the same as it was in 1920,” he ruefully remarked.
But he said agriculture and farming are still vital to the provincial economy and that won’t change.
