The Centennial Flame is a symbolic flame that forms the central element of a fountain, itself located symmetrically in the walkway between the Queen's Gates and the Peace Tower on Parliament Hill, in Ottawa, Ontario.
Lit by then Prime Minister of Canada Lester B. Pearson on New Year's Day 1967, to officially inaugurate the Canadian Centennial celebrations, the flame is fed by a natural gas jet that sits under a metal dome depicting the centennial year logo: a stylised maple leaf. The flame, however, is not an eternal one, as it is routinely extinguished during inclement weather or for cleaning, and relit. Coins thrown into the fountain are routinely collected and added to the Centennial Flame Research Award Fund.
The original plan in 1967 was to remove the Centennial Flame at the end of the Centennial year, but public pressure convinced the federal government to make it a permanent fixture on Parliament Hill.
The fountain's water runs from beneath the coats of arms for each of the provinces and territories as they existed in 1966, into a moat surrounded by a wall that lists the year each province and territory joined Confederation.
Parliament Hill (French: Colline du Parlement), colloquially known as The Hill, is an area of Crown land on the southern banks of the Ottawa River in downtown Ottawa, Ontario. Its Gothic revival suite of buildings — the parliament buildings — serves as the home of the Parliament of Canada and contains a number of architectural elements of national symbolic importance. Parliament Hill attracts approximately 3 million visitors each year.
Originally the site of a military base in the 18th and early 19th centuries, development of the site into a governmental precinct began in 1859, after Bytown was chosen by Queen Victoria as the capital of the Province of Canada. Following a number of extensions to the parliament and departmental buildings and a fire in 1916 that destroyed the Centre Block, Parliament Hill took on its present form with the completion of the Peace Tower in 1927. Since 2002, an extensive $1 billion renovation and rehabilitation project has been underway throughout all of the precinct's buildings; work is not expected to be complete until after 2020.