It turns out the World’s Largest Tin Solider is a pretty popular guy.
About 400 people attended the Tin Soldier Time Capsule Opening event on New Westminster’s waterfront on Feb. 14. Attendees included folks who help build the tin soldier and residents who contributed items to the time capsule when they were kids or wanted to see if their families had submitted items all those years ago.
“We are now about to open the time capsule and uncover what it holds. We don’t actually know. Nobody remembers,” acting mayor Jaimie McEvoy told the crowd. “Is it a floppy disc? Did we make it into CD-ROM drive era? We don’t know.”
As items were removed from the large metal box that had been stored inside the tin man for 24 years, MCs gave a quick description of the contents. Items included a poem by then-poet laureate Don Benson, several books, a cassette tape, Valentines, mementos from various civic groups, and a Feb. 14, 2001 copy of The Record newspaper.
As items were pulled from the time capsule, some excited members of the crowd pressed to get a closer look – prompting McEvoy to kindly ask folks to step back. For those unable to see the items because of the crowd, he noted the items would be laid out inside Fraser River Discovery Centre for all to see on Friday night.
Alysia Ker, accompanied by her husband and their one-year-old son, was among those attending the event and hoping to get a glimpse of the items that have been locked away for 24 years.
“The tin soldier is an icon of New Westminster, so it’s a very community event. As I grew up with the tin soldier, I want my son to grow up with the tin soldier too,” she said. “This is history unveiling itself.”
Ker had a hunch that her mom, Karen Baker-MacGrotty, may have placed items inside the time capsule, and she was right. Baker-MacGrotty included two sealed envelopes containing letters to be delivered to her daughter Alysia and her son Matt.
Kate Barber, who was born and raised in New Westminster, remembered contributing items to the time capsule. Barber and her family, longtime friends of Wayne Wright, who helped oversee the tin soldier project, contributed photos of Barber as a child and a letter from Barber talking about her life at seven.
Unbeknownst to Barber, her mom had written her a letter and included it in the time capsule.
“It’s very neat,” she said about the experience. “It feels very special.”
Commissioned by the Simon Fraser Society for Community living, now known as Kinsight, the tin solder was first unveiled on Nov. 29, 2000 at the Royal Westminster Regiment Armoury, part of the first annual Festival of Trees, a fundraising event to support children with developmental disabilities.
McEvoy said the tin solder was later dismantled and relocated to its current location at Westminster Quay. At a dedication ceremony on Feb. 14, 2001, community members, including children, placed items in a time capsule set to be open on Feb. 14, 2025.
“The World’s Largest Tin Solider is officially recognized by the Guinness Book of World Records,” he said. “He is 32 feet tall and weighs 10,000 pounds.”
According to McEvoy, tradespeople contributed 500 hours of labour to turn about five tons of materials into the World’s Largest Tin Solider.
Labour of love
Tony Hardie, a welder on the project 25 years ago, made the trek from his home on Vancouver Island to attend the time capsule opening event. (He’s the Tony in the book about the tin soldier.)
“It was a labour of love,” he said of the project. “We didn’t know how giant it was because we didn’t assemble it until we took it to the Armoury. It was too big to fit in our truck. So, we built the legs, the body and the head. It was three separate projects that had to mesh together on site.”
Hardie was involved in many aspects of the tin soldier’s story, including its construction and move to the new site and the book launch.
“The funniest thing I think I could say about the whole project was when we finally got it up at the Armoury – and the crane dropped the head on, and they bolted it on and got it on – then it was: how do we unhook the crane? Nobody has a ladder that’s big enough to go to the top, and everything had to be bolted from the inside,” he said. “We had to get the fire department to come with their long extension ladder … to unhook it.”
Hardie contributed a digital CD-ROM with photos of the fabrication and all the construction that was involved in the project. His daughter also attended Friday’s time capsule reveal.
“My daughter Krystal put a Valentine’s Day card in there for me,” he smiled. “She was four at the time.”
Hardie has created a Facebook page – Friends of the World’s Largest Tin Solider – that includes all the photos of the making the tin solder and the various people and events that were held through the years.
“It was a labour of love. It was something that was pretty special. You go to work every day and work on this or that or the other – it’s not usually the World’s Largest Tin Solider that you get to work on every day.
As the sun began to set on New Westminster’s waterfront, a Coast Salish welcome figure was projected onto the World’s Largest Tin Soldier. The art, created by Kwantlen artist Brandon Gabriel, reimagined the tin solder as a Coast Salish welcome figure.
In addition to the time capsule opening, Fridays’ event featured activities hosted by Fraser River Discovery Centre, a variety of booths, and book readings at Kinder Books by author Tiffany Stone of her book: Tall Tale – The True Story of the World’s Largest Tin Soldier. (Kids are invited to drop by Kinder Books and pick up a colouring contest sheet; the store has located 10 copies of the book to give away.)
