Valley Transformation

KRISTIN SCHNELTEN

A beloved elm tree near Kimberley set its final flowers last spring, succumbing to Dutch elm disease before autumn arrived. When arborists arrived to remove the tree, homeowner Michele Chaban, M/RSW, PhD, requested a substantial portion of the trunk—about 11 feet—be left behind. “I decided to keep a remnant of it and turn it into a statue that will bear the elements over time until it, too, dissipates,” says Chaban.

Commissioning the work to mark her 70th birthday, Chaban chose local artist David Robinson, who 27 years ago completed the 4.5-tonne white limestone sculpture of Wiarton Willie located in the harbour town’s Bluewater Park. A multimedia artist whose family has deep roots in the area, Robinson captured Chaban’s attention not only for his skill and talent but his passion for the valley and its history.

Robinson is a graduate of the Ontario College of Art and Design and pursued graduate studies in Pietrasanta, Italy, and Queen’s University before entering his formal career as an art teacher. A lifelong bicyclist who finds much of his inspiration while touring, he chose to give up driving altogether when he took early retirement. “These last six years have been the best of my life,” he says. “I’m time rich, but financially poor, and I think my life is better than it’s ever been.” As a respected painter and sculptor with murals and installations throughout Ontario, he’s completed countless wood carvings before, but not at this scale, and none of them in-place.

The sculpture is located in the Amik (an Algonquin word meaning “beaver”) subdivision in the Beaver Valley, but there are other, deeper, intentions for Chaban’s choice of subject matter. “In a time of forest fires, climate change and increasing encroachment on the wilds, where animals find it difficult to make a home, it may be that we need to restore the beaver habitats, so they can help work with us on climate change,” she says. “In decades to come, water will be an even more important commodity than it is now. If we help the beavers to live, they will help us live, our children’s children to live, everyone’s children to live.”

While researching and sketching details, Robinson discovered his concept of an upside-down beaver is a bit of an anomaly. “There isn’t a single sculpture of a diving beaver. It’s difficult to even find a photograph of one in this position,” he says. “Canada is full of quaint beavers in Mountie’s hats, a spatula in one hand in front of a pancake house—cute, corny creatures with an anthropomorphic grin. But what a beaver is really about is minding its own business, building its lodge, its dam. It’s working, it’s doing its thing. In all the years we’ve been doing beaver sculptures, we’ve overlooked just presenting the beaver in a very noble, serious state.”

In the completed sculpture, the tail and hindquarters of the beaver are rendered in detail, with deep etchings depicting the fur that caused such frenzy in 17th century England and such strife among Indigenous peoples. “For countless millennia, the people of the Beaver Valley lived in harmony with the beaver,” Robinson reflects. “But the white man’s lust for beaver pelts led to the Beaver Wars [also known as the French and Iroquois Wars] just over the top of the valley.”

In a nod to Buddhist art and teachings, Robinson created two intricate rear paws in opposing directions: one raised, representing acknowledgement, and the other extended in a gesture of welcome and acceptance. The beaver’s abdomen twists through the length of the tree trunk, spiraling as it swims toward the base of its lodge, toward the earth, with gnawed stick clenched firmly in its teeth. Its forepaws are undefined, morphing into the exposed roots of the tree and surrounding soil.

To Chaban, the project brought about change on a community level. “There was a curiosity, openness, wonder,” she says. “It was because of the art project during COVID, a time of social distancing, that we came to value and appreciate each other as individuals and families known and previously unknown, as we gathered in dialogue about the sculpture.”

Passersby had a full summer to witness the former tree evolve. Robinson worked on the project for 100 days, first with chainsaw then with hammer and chisel, finishing the piece with oil after deepening the colour of paws, tail and snout using the ancient Japanese wood-charring technique shou sugi ban.

In early September the sculpture was declared complete, and homeowners and artist held a small opening celebration. Robinson says it’s the most exciting project yet for him. “It’s the high point of my life. Everything you do as an artist—today, in this moment—you’re standing on a lifetime of experience. You should be able to do your best work ever,” he says. “I don’t want to say my best work was in 1995. I want to say that every year I grow, and I take in more ideas, and I question myself, I suffer and I struggle. And that’s the way it should be. That’s the life of an artist.” –Kristin Schnelten

KRISTIN SCHNELTEN