“There she is!”
“Where?”
“In the black hat!”
“No, she’s in the grey hat!”
“I think she’s in the red hat!”
For a minute, none of these students from Nellie McClung Collegiate in
Manitou, Man., were sure which of the hatted women was Queen Elizabeth
II.
But once the Queen and her escorts began moving closer to the Grade 7-9
students from this rural Manitoba school, they realized she was wearing
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the grey hat.
The students, who were in Winnipeg for the Oct. 8 royal visit, craned
their necks and tried to catch glimpses and take photographs of
Canada’s head of state.
The Manitou students, about half of whom live on farms, were scattered
through the crowd, each group of half a dozen shepherded by a teacher
or parent.
The Queen moved through the crowd, accepting bouquets, chatting with
children, petting Corgi dogs and smiling.
Afterward, she listened to school choirs from across Manitoba, briefly
visited St. Boniface, then travelled to the legislature to officially
unveil the restored and regilded Golden Boy statue.
The Nellie McClung students walked toward the legislature, ate supper
in their bus, watched the concert put on for the Queen and then drove
home to their town and farms, about 150 kilometres away.
The next day the students were asked to record their impressions of the
visit and of the Queen. A number remarked with surprise about how she
appeared to be a regular person.
“The first thing I noted about her was her size,” wrote Grade 9 student
Jennie Hemminger.
“She was fairly short and fairly thin.”
Her lack of pomp was noticed by Grade 9 student Kelly Sanders.
“The only thing I expected was that the Queen would wear some sort of a
crown. But I guess she tries to be more like a normal, ordinary
person,” wrote Sanders.
Grade 8 student Jason Kehler was impressed by the Queen, but most moved
by the sight of the Golden Boy.
“When we got there I looked at the Golden Boy and couldn’t believe how
shiny it was,” said Kehler.
“I had only seen it a few times before and it looked totally different.”
These encounters with Canada’s head of state and Manitoba’s symbolic
statue were exactly what social studies teacher Grant Caldwell hoped
for when he helped organize the trip.
“For a lot of the younger kids the monarchy seems pretty far removed,
so I thought it would be good for them to experience who our head of
state is up close and see the heritage we have as Canadians and our
connection to Britain,” said Caldwell.
Students at the school raised money to pay for the trip which involved
about 65 Nellie McClung students. A contingent of 45 Grades 5 and 6
students from Manitou Elementary School also travelled to Winnipeg for
the royal visit.
Some of the children’s accounts complain about pushy people in the
crowd blocking their view of the Queen, and of having to wait a long
time to see her, but they all show excitement about the Queen herself,
the concert that night, and the fireworks that lit a grand finale to
the day.
“They’re still at an age when they want to learn and they’re still
excited about things like this,” said Caldwell.
