The World’s Tallest Tin Solider is looking a little spiffier thanks to a shower.
New Westminster Fire and Rescue Services recently used its aerial ladder truck and hoses to give the tin soldier a good spring cleaning.
“We got him all cleaned up,” said Fire Chief Tim Armstrong. “We got lots of positive comments from passersby.”
The fire department used its truck with a bucket, and soap and water to clean the 9.75-metre tall tin soldier.
“He is all shiny and clean,” Armstrong told The Record. “It had algae growing on it from the winter. Maybe we can make this an annual event – a spring cleaning.”
The cleaning is good news to New Westminster resident Vince Kreiser, who called city hall and the fire chief to see if anything could be done to clean up the soldier that’s located on the waterfront, beside River Market.
“I pedal by that every day,” he said. “I see the moss hanging off it and said, ‘why isn’t that thing washed?’”
With Anvil Centre set to open nearby in September, Kreiser believes the city needs to ensure the area around the convention and cultural facility is free of weeds and garbage – and a dirty tin soldier. He’s pleased the fire department gave the tin soldier a wash down.
“It’s a much better impression, especially with the Anvil Centre opening,” he said. “I have been to enough conferences that I know you go walking around at lunch.”
Before he was mayor, Wayne Wright led the effort to bring the world’s largest tin soldier to New Westminster as part of a fundraiser for the Simon Fraser Society for Community Living. The soldier, which the society gifted to the city in 2011, was included in the Guinness Book of World Records.
The June 17 cleaning wasn’t the first time local firefighters were called in to help with the tin soldier. When it was being placed at the Quay, the soldier’s head got stuck on a crane hook so firefighters went up on an aerial truck to remove the head and save the day.
