Kent Monkman debuts beaver sculpture in Toronto’s ambitious new waterfront park

TORONTO — Kent Monkman’s first-ever public art installation is dam good. The celebrated Cree artist’s new permanent sculpture, dubbed “The Colony,” debuts Wednesday in Toronto’s east end.

The 15-foot-high bronze structure features beavers dancing, feasting and celebrating, evoking Indigenous ceremonies.

It highlights the vital role of beavers in the natural, Indigenous and colonial histories of Turtle Island, says a release.

The public artwork is located in Toronto’s Biidsaasige Park along the Lassonde Art Trail, an ambitious open-air museum.

Monkman says its site, where the Don River meets Lake Ontario, is especially meaningful, as it’s been an important waterway for several First Nations for thousands of years.

“I can’t think of a better place for these beavers, inspired by the fanciful beavers of Veremondo Rossi’s 18th-century engraving, to gather in a ceremonial feast, celebrating our world views, honouring the water, and continuing our traditions of relaying knowledge through songs and stories,” he said in a statement.

A member of the Fisher River Cree Nation, Monkman is an interdisciplinary artist lauded for using classical painting, film and performance to challenge and rewrite colonial histories in Western art.

His artworks are held in the permanent collections of institutions including the Metropolitan Museum of Art and the Smithsonian American Art Museum.

This Sunday two very important things will happen in town. A Thousand Friends of Martinez will be holding its fourth annual Friends Fest with a catered luncheon and musical entertainment. There it will introduce its citizens of the year and the first collector’s edition of the brand new campaign to reintroduce the town with “Outdoor Martinez“.

“Our “Outdoor Martinez” map will include at least 100 parks, trails, and open spaces— all within 15 minutes of downtown Martinez— including a national historic site, five regional parks, eight regional trails, four different watershed areas and several dozen city parks and open spaces and show you how to get to them. Martinez’ outdoor environment and recreational opportunities are really what characterizes our hidden gem of a city.”

The good people behind the Thousand Friends are responsible for giving us a truly responsible and responsive mayor, and long ago helped inform my campaign to save the you-know-whats from you-know-whom. It’s a top notch organization that has your cities best interests at heart, Join us to support their special day and see your town in its best light.

If you have spent five whole minutes of your life thinking about or advocating for beavers you have no doubt encountered the age old snigger alluding to lady parts and the term “beaver”  This stopped being funny or interesting to me in any way long before the first Subcommittee meeting. But the world marches on in its way regardless.

I want to do two very surprising things now, First to show you the way this sad failed comedy is playing out at Beaver Con and then to tell you the one very surprising time that old joke actually made me laugh,

First the conference:

Summer’s Eve has a booth at BeaverCon, an ecological conference, this week

Visitors to BeaverCon, a conference happening in Minnesota this week devoted to beaver ecology and wetland restoration, will be surprised to find … a Summer’s Eve booth offering vaginal wellness products and merch?

The playful conceit of the campaign is that a Summer’s Eve intern thought she was booking space at a different BeaverCon. Summer’s Eve collaborated with The Beaver Institute on a social post featuring the intern:

That gets an eyebrow from me and maybe an arms folded harumpf, but there was one time in my actual life when that joke did make me actually laugh outloud. And because its the very last day of September and we’re all friends here, I will tell you about it.

It was years ago when I had just started with the John Muir Association Board. They used to have a fancy catered award ceremony at the Campbell ‘s theater every year. One year they were honoring a distinguished  actor/impersonator that played Muir nation wide in all kinds of productions and films. Lee Stetson. 

Since I was on the board I was invited to show him around and take him to dinner while he was in town. He specifically wanted to be see the beavers so a bunch of us took him to the creek after dinner and looked around for them. I think it was winter and true to the season didn’t find a single beaver that night but we did see a raccoon swimming in the creek. I apologized for their tardiness and everyone had a good time laughing about it anyway.

Later Lee did an amazing retelling of the passage where Muir wrote about climbing up a pine to see how it felt to be swaying back and forth in the wind during a storm. The awards ceremony was well attended and inspiring. Afterwards I told him how amazing his delivery was as we tidied ed up the theater, apologizing again that we had not seen my friends.

He thanked me and shook his head with an impish twinkle saying, still in his Scottish brogue…

“No worries, Tho my wife was very unhappy with me on the phone last night when I told we went all over town looking for Beavers”

It took me a moment to answer.

“No matter how old a man gets, who he is dressed up as  or how many times its been  said that joke is never going to stop being funny, is it?”

He threw back his Muir head and laughed.

“No, it isn’t”

Okay, THEN I laughed.