Assiniboine Park - Boy With The Boot / Queen Victoria bust

 © 2026, Christian Cassidy

Objects: Former Jubilee Fountain (Boy With The Boot / Queen Victoria bust)
Place: English Garden, Assiniboine Park
Created: 1898

Queen Victoria was the monarch who signed the Manitoba Act in 1870, and there were a number of major monuments to her around Winnipeg. (For more about Victoria, the Victoria Day holiday, and her connections to Canada, visit here.)

In early 1897, Victoria's diamond jubilee year that celebrated 60 years on the throne, the local branch of the Young People's Society of Christian Endeavor proposed a centrally located drinking fountain to celebrate the event. It was eventually agreed that the "Jubilee Fountain", designed by well-known architect Samuel Hooper, would be located on the front lawn of city hall.

The main feature of the fountain was a bust of Queen Victoria carved by Hooper, who was also a stonemason. The secondary feature of the fountain was a four-foot-tall-bronze of "...a boy of about ten years of age holding a boot in his hand" that was ordered from New York. (There are several casats of this statue around the world.)

The fountain was fed by an artisanal well, and the Free Press described how the water flowed this way: "About the base of the pedestal upon which the bust of Her Majesty will rest four buffalo heads in bronze, from which four sprays of water will pour into the surrounding basin....From the point in the shoe the hands of the boy, another series of streams fall into the basin, and at the base of this, the streams from the drinking fountain will fall from the bronze lips of two ferocious-looking lions."

The city agreed to lay the foundation, and the Trades and Labour Council agreed to assemble the column of local stone that the queen's bust would sit atop. Sunday schools from churches across the city fundraised nickels and dimes to put a dent into the estimated $1,500 price tag. (Their fundraising came up a "few hundred dollars short", so it is likely the city paid for much of it.)

Work was still underway in June 1898, but the fountain was ready by July 12th when Lord Aberdeen and Lady Aberdeen, Canada's Governor General and Chatelaine, respectively, unveiled it.

The fountain with Queena and boy, ca. 1910 (City of Winnipeg Archives)

It is difficult to find a photo of the entire fountain because the "Boy with the Boot" barely lasted 15 years at this site, and not a lot is written about its removal. 

Winnipeg Tribune coverage of a September 1910 Libraries and Civic Baths committee meeting noted that there would be several improvements made to Assiniboine Park in the coming years. It then notes: "If the plan suggested is carried out, the board may remove the 'boy with the boot' fountain which has been located in the city hall gardens" without explaining what the connection was.

A 1955 Tribune story says it had been removed because the driveway in front of city hall had to be widened.

Whatever the reason, the "Boy and the Boot" was removed by the start of the first World War, leaving just the Queen, as can be seen in this 1961 photo.

What happened to the 'Boy with the Boot'?

September 29, 1948, Winnipeg Free Press

Neither daily newspaper mentioned the statue again until the Winnipeg Free Press ran a photo in September 1948 showing it at the edge of the duck pond in Assiniboine Park. It is unclear how long it had been there for.

A few months later, the newspaper ran a follow-up item on its editorial page to say that the image had prompted a wave of phone calls and letters from the public asking "why this little statue, one of the most delightful pieces of boy sculpture, should be kept buried in the foliage at Assiniboine Park?"  The editorial called on the parks board to look at moving it, even just 20 feet from the edge of the pond, so that people could see it in the round.

In 1952, the statue was removed for repairs as its arm with the boot had broken off. This was around the same time that the park was developing an International Gardens (now called the English Garden.)

Rotary International, which was paying for the construction of the entrance to the gardens, rescued the boy and made it a central figure of its project that opened in summer 1953. The statue still calls that spot home.

What happened the the Victoria bust and column?

Victoria's bust and its column also ended up at the English Garden at Assiniboine Park, but its journey is less mysterious.

The fountain was dismantled in 1962 to make way for the construction of the new Civic Centre on the site of the old city hall and public market building. Initially, the column and bust were moved across the street, as was the Little Black Devil which also stood on the lawn of the old city hall. 

When preparations were underway to start construction on the Centennial Concert Hall in 1965, the Manitoba Centennial Centre Corporation, a provincial Crown corporation, told the city to remove it. (It did keep room to reinstall the Devil, which today stands between the Concert hall and Planetarium.)

The Centennial Corporation and Manitoba Historical Society suggested that the best place for the city to put the monument would be in the English Garden at Assiniboine Park to reunite it with the "Boy with the Boot".  the city agreed but there were no funds in the budget for its reconstruction, so it likely sat in storage for most of 1965 and 1966.

Lamarsh with the Victoria Bust, May 18, 1967, Winnipeg Tribune

The column was rebuilt in 1967, possibly with some finding from the Centennial Corporation. On May 18, 1967, just days before the Victoria Day holiday, Secretary of State Judy LaMarsh pulled away a giant black drape to unveil it to the public.

After more than 50 years, the queen and her boy were reunited.