I’ve driven along Beach Avenue in Vancouver for many, many years. Each time the amazing vista of English Bay somehow seems new to me. The ever-changing weather, skies and water conditions ensure that no two fleeting glimpses will be the same. You see, most times that’s all I ever get is a fleeting glimpse, simply because I’m usually driving. Vancouver, and all its many faces, is just too beautiful to consume only in fleeting glimpses. One has to slow down and get out and walk.
Perhaps my best views of Vancouver have come from the seat of an ocean-going canoe. I’ve paddled the waters of English Bay many times in these wondrous First Nations craft and the skyline and shores of this most attractive city are never more intriguing or inviting than experienced from that ocean vantage point.
That said, whenever I’ve driven along Beach Avenue, it is seldom that I don’t search out the beautiful inukshuk on the grassy point. Its huge stone slabs loom high in an abstract human form as if standing witness to all who come and go. An object that speaks of our Canadian Inuit family in the north, it is a harbinger to all as they come to or leave Vancouver by water. I was told long ago that one of the purposes of these humanoid structures was to indicate that humans had been there previously. Providing a landmark reference to northern travelers, it literally spoke the words “We were here”.
One day as I drove by, I was compelled to stop and walk. I wanted to see the inukshuk up close, on more intimate terms. It was then that I knew I had to paint it. I stopped and sat on the grassy slope above the inukshuk and let the composition come to me. It had to be simple and stark. It had to be about the inukshuk. With the photograph taken, I returned to Gibsons and over the next month or so I completed the painting. A mere couple of weeks later the Vancouver 2010 Olympic committee unveiled its proud logo for the upcoming world event. It was the inukshuk there on the point on Beach Avenue, the very image I had just painted. What a wonderful coincidence.
Should anyone who visits our city in the winter of 2010 find my image of the inukshuk and take it home with them, I’m sure the title, as much as the image, will speak to them. Simply put, it will say “WE WERE HERE”.
