Piper down: Village in New Brunswick wants giant sandpiper returned to pedestal
Global News
Standing 2.4 metres high and weighing 135 kilograms, the statue of a semipalmated sandpiper was once the pride of Dorchester.
A new sculpture has been commissioned and a platform has been built but a New Brunswick village’s oversized avian avatar has still not returned to its roost.
Standing 2.4 metres high and weighing 135 kilograms, the statue of a semipalmated sandpiper was once the pride of Dorchester.
Since 2001, Shep — named after nearby Shepody Bay — had pointed thousands of tourists and townsfolk to the mudflats of the Bay of Fundy, where the pint-sized shorebirds gather in late July in a pit stop on their flight from the Arctic to South America.
After the original wooden statue started to rot and had to be removed three years ago, local officials commissioned a $10,000 reincarnation made of steel, epoxy and fibreglass. The result is now sitting in the workshop of artist Robin Hanson in French Lake, N.B., as municipal officials try to untangle what one former official said is “red tape” grounding the bird.
A recent municipal amalgamation has stalled payment for the sculpture. “They invested in the platform, the steps and there’s no bird,” Kara Becker, the former deputy mayor of Dorchester, said with a laugh.
“It actually looks terrible because, as you know, Dorchester has the prison there and it had a jail and it kind of looks like hanging gallows to me.” She said people in Dorchester are willing to raise funds for the statue.
The Dorchester village council commissioned Hanson to craft a replacement Shep, but on Jan. 1, the village was merged with Sackville and Pointe de Bute to form Tantramar. That meant Shep took a back seat.
Debbie Wiggins-Colwell, who was mayor of Dorchester and is now a councillor for Tantramar, said she is “working diligently” and is hopeful Shep will be on its perch before the community’s annual sandpiper festival in July. Tantramar Mayor Andrew Black did not return a request for comment.