|
Wednesday, August 18th, 2004
By Paul Turenne
IN the forest along the Seine River south of the community of Royalwood
stands a testament to environmental kinship.
A tree that was once a threat to the Bois des Esprits forest
surrounding it because it had Dutch elm disease has been given new life as
Woody, a sculpture representing a bearded tree spirit. Les Gens du Bois, a
local wood-carving club, has been hard at work chiselling Woody's image
out of the elm tree since May.
"What we wanted to do was release this tree's spirit into the Bois des
Esprits," said Walter Mirosh, who along with fellow carver Robert Leclair
has been responsible for a large part of the work so far. "This is a
project we took on to celebrate our club's 25th anniversary."
The tree that Woody is emerging from used to stand about 50 feet tall
and dominate its area of the forest. But the city had identified it as
being infected with Dutch elm disease and had it slated for removal.
One day before it was set to be cut down, David Venema, a board member
with Save Our Seine, arranged with the city to spare the tree and to hand
it over to the Gens du Bois, who had earlier asked Venema to find them a
tree to carve.
Leclair, Mirosh and another half-dozen members of the group have been
coming out to the forest since February, when they began stripping and
burning the bark from the tree. It's a process they had to complete by
April 1 in order to assure the city that the tree would not spread Dutch
elm disease this summer.
Once the tree was stripped and cut down to about 10 feet, they began to
carve Woody's image out of it using a wooden mallet and chisels.
"A true carver uses a mallet and a chisel," said Mirosh. "Using a knife
is whittling, and this sure isn't whittling."
"It's a good example of what I guess you could call eco-graffiti," said
David Danyluk, a coordinator with Save Our Seine, the group that helped
lobby to protect the Bois des Esprits land from being developed. "It's
nice to see because it's a negative thing, a diseased tree that was a
threat, and now it's become a symbol of the forest."
"Every time I go there to see it, it just seems like it should belong
there," he said.
Indeed, the carvers feel that the tree's spirit really does live in the
forest.
Mirosh said that the day they started to carve Woody's eyes, the forest
was alive with the sounds of birds chirping, frogs croaking, and other
woodland noises.
"Right as Robert started carving the eyes, the sound in the forest just
stopped. Not for a second but for about two minutes. As soon as he
finished carving the eye, the sounds started again," said Mirosh.
The same thing happened when Leclair carved the second eye.
"The hair on the back of my neck stood up," said Mirosh. "I said,
'Robert, we've got a real wood spirit here and I think we've just released
it into the forest.'"
It's events like these that make carving Woody such a joy to the men.
"This is great, I've just loved it. It's funny how you really get
attached to this," said Leclair.
"This has been fantastic. Every day we've come down here has been a
great experience for us. Every time we come to the forest we find
something new," said Mirosh.
The sculpture is now about half done. Woody is just about completed but
the carvers plan to add a second spirit to the other side of the tree.
They expect to be done sometime this fall.
© 2004 Winnipeg Free Press. All Rights Reserved.
 Back
to In the Media
Back
to Main
|
