The Murals of Chermainus

Chermainus is a small seaside town just off the highway up the coast of Vancouver Island and is fun to drive or walk through. It was originally a lumber town but when that industry became less important it turned to art to save the community from economic collapse.

There are now over 40 giant murals around the town which largely celebrate their pioneer past as well as cute shops to attract tourists. There are also some other arty touches- statues, totem poles, a labyrinth, a cute park with a water wheel, and more. Here are rather a lot of pictures.

This chainsaw sculpture shows the roots of the town, which was the logging industry. Yes, the trees were that bog. And some still are. 

This mural of First Nations people and a totem pole along with the sculpture of the man in the pond greet you when you enter Chermainus 

Franklin with a mural of early canoes and settlement

An original resident (First Nation) views a sailing boat approaching his shore.

A horse and buggy ride for those who don't want to walk around town to look at the murals and take photos, like these ladies.

There are yelllow footprints directing you from one mural to the next. They have yellow footprints in Duncan too to direct you to see all the totem poles. 

I like this idea. I am ready to design a mural of three stages of my life. If I can limit my life to only three stages.

Chinese workers on the railroad

Moving lumber by steam engine train

Three statues of First Nations people in front of a mural of their lands

The original telephone office

This is a telephone company repair truck. I can only assume the truck driver prefers driving around with these animals rather than the resident bears, wolves, and seals. 

An old store

I assume his wife was holding the camera

As elsewhere in the Pacific Northwest they floated the logs on the water to move them from place to place. 

The rough, tough early loggers

The post office

This waterwheel, garden, and fountain is at the park

Some bear sculptures eating ice cream outside an ice cream shop. A lot more chainsaw sculptures coming up in my next post. 

Last spring when we were in The Netherlands someone called us "a cute old couple". Uh, maybe. But to me THIS is what a cute old couple looks like.  

The World's Largest Collection of Outdoor Totem Poles

Several of the towns on Vancouver Island have unique features to attract tourists to visit as well as to beautify their town.

Duncan is a charming town, actually my favorite, with a lot of cute shops, a historic railroad station and museum, and the world's largest collection of outdoor totem poles. Most of them are within a few blocks in the downtown core. Each time I visit I take photos so I thought I would finally share some.

A downtown park 

 Each of the 39 poles has an accompanying sign telling about the artist and the meaning of the pole. While most of the artists are from the Pacific Northwest. some are from other parts of Canada and one from New Zealand.

Baskets of flowers are very popular all over Vancouver Island

Many of the totem poles are located near the former train station and museum

A close up

This one is standing in an alley that was the old Chinatown. They took some photos of Chinatown then they tore it down and posted the photos on the walls of the alley instead. 

 There are yellow footprints on the ground to direct people from pole to pole. I didn't post a photo here because I'll be posting a photo of similar footprints in my next post which is The Murals of Chemainus.

Some Nice Sand Sculptures

We are traveling around Vancouver Island this month, as we have done the past few summers. Last weekend we saw the international sand sculpting contest in Parksville. 

These are not sand castles, these are serious sculptures. The contestants come from all over-Netherlands, Belgium, Florida, Canada, California, Russia and more. Some people compete on their own, others work In teams of two. Everyone has three full days (30 hours) to complete their work. This year we visited Parksville three times to watch how the work progressed. The first time they were delivering the sand and setting up with bulldozers.   

Each contestant gets a big pile of special sand. It is not ordinary beach sand. It is stickier and they have to use every bit of it. No leftovers allowed. After completion, the sculptures are sprayed with a glue so they can be viewed for a month. My last visit was 4 days after they were finished and they were still perfect. 

This year the theme was Wild Things. 

We wanted to watch the artists turning the sand into art so our second visit to the sculptures was when the pieces were only half done.  

This is my favorite sculpture with the artist. A wild and free woman with her DNA or cells evolving. I thought it was very artistic and was disappointed that she didn't win first place, only third. But to be fair it was a one sided sculpture and some were two sided. 

The completed piece. 

 I  This was another prize winner.  The photo above shows the artists examining their work before it was finished. This is a two sided sculpture of a wild tortoise. This side is a natural. The other side shows...

... a turtle assembled from ocean junk people throw in the water. 

This sculpture won first prize in the couples division. 

These Russian sculptors started with a famous classical statue and made her wilder. 

In the above photo the two artists are hard at work.

Below is the famous statue of the classical fertility goddess, Artemis. These artists based their sand sculpture on this bust. Hah- I guess there is some kind of pun there. 

This is not my picture. It is a random one from the internet. Actually, I have taken photos of this same statue from my trip to Ephesus in Turkey some years ago. But sometimes the problem with having 33,000 photos on my computer is it is hard to find the one I want when you want it. 

A few more Wild Things. 

Here we have a fish being eaten by a bird being eaten by a cat being eaten by a something (wolf? being eaten by a bear being eaten by a person.

This Jimi Hendrix inspired sculpture was the first place winner. If you look closely you can see his hair is made up of animals. 

This is the Parksville public beach where the contest is held. Not as dramatic or solitary as Tofino which we visited last week but it is a nice community beach. The water is quite shallow so you can walk quite far without getting in very deep.