Yellowknife mural back on display, 4 years after it was left in a pile of gravel

A beloved mural by Yellowknife artist Walt Humphries is back on display outside Stanton Territorial Hospital — more than four years after a pair of hikers found it lying in a pile of gravel.

Humphries told CBC he was "a bit surprised", but happy, to see the mural back up when he was at the hospital for a blood test on Thursday.

"Four years had gone by and someone decided to put it back up," he said. "When you create an image, and you put it out there, you never know where it's going to go or what it's going to show up as or how it's going to be used. But that's what art's all about." 

Humphries painted the 8.5 metre by 2.5 metre mural for the hospital in 1992 — donating his labour for free. After many years on display, it was taken down while the hospital was being renovated around seven years ago. 

He assumed it was safely in storage until 2020, when a friend found it lying faceup in a pile of gravel behind the hospital, looking like it had been left out for years.

After Humphries confronted the government, they promised that it would be restored, stored properly and put back on display when construction at the hospital was finished —  but Humphries hadn't heard anything about those plans in years.

Northwest Territories Health and Social Services Authority spokesperson David Maguire said the mural could not be reinstated until construction around the Stanton Territorial Hospital site was finished.

"The plan was to reinstate the mural after site works were complete so residents could once again enjoy this community artwork created by Walt Humphries," he told CBC in an email. 

"We are happy to see the Mural back on the campus of care we have created with Stanton Territorial Hospital and the Łıwegǫ̀atì facility."

When Humphries looks at the mural now, he said it seems as much a historical artifact as an artwork. Looking at the painting makes him think about how the territory has changed since he first painted it in 1992.

But his hopes for the artwork are the same as they have always been — to give hospital patients and their loved ones who are struggling "a little sparkle for their day."

"Hopefully it will be here for another few decades," he said.