It’s an autumn rite of passage for many — cleaning windows before the snow and cold arrive. That job is carried out on a much larger scale at the Canadian Museum for Human Rights. Last week, workers with Bresara Window Cleaning tackled the museum’s massive glass facade, called The Cloud, which is made of 1,335 custom-cut pieces.
The museum regularly schedules a cleaning in the fall. The Israel Asper Tower of Hope, the museum’s glass spire, is cleaned in both May and September.
Because of the unique angles of the museum’s design, the job can only be done with the use of a crane and bucket, which is required to extend nearly 40 metres in the air.
Ruth Bonneville / Free Press
Jayden Vidal-Bircham, washing the CMHR windows from bucket on a crane.
Window washers Jayden Vidal-Bircham and Carson Therrien have been plying the trade for several years and have worked on some of Winnipeg’s tallest buildings, including 300 Main Street, which is 42 storeys high, 201 Portage (formerly TD Centre) and the Richardson Building.
When asked if they ever experience fear while doing their high-rise work they both responded by saying, “not really.”
“I enjoy it. I’m coming to hang out for eight hours and then I go home. It doesn’t even feel like work,” Therrien says.
Adds Vidal-Bircham: “Personally in my opinion, I feel safer high up on the side of a building than I do standing 10 feet on a ladder. You’re tied off on the side of a building, if anything goes wrong you’re gonna get caught; but if you fall off a ladder there’s nothing there to catch you.”
Meanwhile, the museum will be hosting a gala on Nov. 6 to mark its 10th anniversary.
Ruth Bonneville / Free Press
Photo of the crane operator maneuvering the window washers in the bucket up and down the walls of windows.
Ruth Bonneville / Free Press
Silhouette photo of window washers in bucket attached to a crane as they are lifted above the city to wash the window of the CMHR Thursday morning.
Ruth Bonneville / Free Press
View of the sun rising as the crane extends the bucket high above the city overlooking the CMHR building at start of work.
Ruth Bonneville / Free Press
High-rise window washers Carson Therrien (wearing black pants) and Jayden Vidal-Bircham (beige pants) direct the crane operator to maneuver close to the curved of glass of the CMHR building while in a bucket at the end of a crane, high above the ground.
Ruth Bonneville / Free Press
Photo from the view of inside the CMHR building of Window washers, Jayden Vidal-Bircham (left) and Carson Therrien working Thursday.
Ruth Bonneville / Free Press
The curved of glass of the CMHR building
Ruth Bonneville / Free Press
Jayden Vidal-Bircham, washing the CMHR windows from bucket on a crane.
Ruth Bonneville
Photojournalist
As the first female photographer hired by the Winnipeg Free Press, Ruth has been an inspiration and a mentor to other women in the male-dominated field of photojournalism for over two decades.
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