by Allen D. Macartney

High above the House of Commons floor, late afternoon sun streams through the Gothic-style windows of Canada’s Parliament Buildings. Cast in delicate hues of red, blue and golden yellow, the visitors’ gallery is softly bathed in colour from the windows dedicated to the Yukon and Northwest Territories.

Part of a larger project to install stained-glass windows in the House of Commons, these two works highlighting Canada’s Arctic are most suitably located at the chamber’s north and northwest side. Muted tones, varying with the sun’s movement throughout the day, were chosen to complement Parliament Hill’s Victorian architecture.

Eleanor Milne, the Dominion sculptor and designer of the project, says: “The work really is based on colour.” To capture a distinct northern flavour, Milne created the windows with easily perceived arctic themes.

Because the tundra bursts forth in a kaleidoscopic celebration of wild flowers each spring, both windows highlight the North’s abundant flora. The legendary husky, crucial in the early development of the Arctic, is featured atop the Yukon’s window.

As Canada’s Parliament Buildings are internationally recognized as some of the finest examples of Western architectural design, the importance of creating a lasting artistic masterpiece was recognized from the very beginning. Milne worked with the glass to contribute creatively to an overall mood of hushed majesty in the chamber. She achieved this primarily through colour.

“When we make a colour in glass, it is not done by painting the glass; the colour is in the glass itself.... Chemicals and ground-up rocks are mixed with white glass — ordinary window glass,” says Milne. Chemically-coloured silica is made fast in the glass and does not fade. Subtle colour tones should remain for over eight hundred years.

This process is both long and very costly. “Red glass cannot be made without using pure gold. Selenium glass is yellow ... (and) was very hard to get,” explains Milne. Partly for this reason, the glass is not produced in Canada but imported from Britain, France, Belgium, West Germany and the United States.

Supplied in sheets measuring two feet by three feet, the glass was cut from patterns and built up like a giant jigsaw puzzle. “It’s something like cutting out a dress pattern,” says Miss Milne. The individual pieces were then mounted in soft lead, and supported by small bars to prevent buckling. Once installed, the support bars disappeared in the design.

“Design is like rhythm, it is like music,” says Milne. When you enter the chamber of the House of Commons you are indeed treated to a rich symphony of colour — a celebration of Canada’s northern beauty.

Photographer and author Allen Macartney lives in Ottawa and travels extensively in the northern territories. He thanks M. Leger at the Parliamentary Library for his valuable assistance.

This article originally appeared in the Spring 1985 issue of The Beaver.