By Steve Hubrecht
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Canal Flats has its first-ever public art installation piece. The swirling new sculpture was set in Portage Square park in the middle of the village on the morning of Friday, May 28.

The piece, entitled ‘The Portal’, was designed by East Kootenay artist Paul Reimer and incorporates repurposed steel from the former sawmill (which was the economic lifeblood of the village up until its closure in 2015), rocks from the Kootenay River. Reimer told the Pioneer that the fluid form of ‘The Portal’ is meant to convey the passage of time, the evolution of industry and technology in the village, and the major water bodies (both Columbia Lake and the Kootenay River) near the village.

The sculpture is fashioned from a recycled I-beam from the old sawmill, Reimer explained, pointing out that one end of the beam was distorted by the fire that burned down part of the disused mill several years ago. “I’m sure many people remember the day of that fire, just as they remember how important the mill was,” he said. “On a conceptual level, the piece is meant to represent the passage of time in Canal Flats, from the days, not all that long ago, when it was resource community, to the new vision of the community as a technology centre.”

The sculpture is supposed to be interactive, explained Reimer. “It’s meant to be walked. As you walk through it, it’s as though you are stepping through time, through that passage from resource town to technology town. That’s why it’s called ‘The Portal’.”

The rocks on either side of the sculpture come from the Kootenay River and “tie the piece into the natural surroundings of Canal Flats. The river, and the lake, have played a really important role in the history of the village. The canal that was supposed to link the two bodies of water played a part in the early growth of the community, so it was important that they be represented in the piece,” said Reimer.

The Cranbrook-based Reimer grew up in Crawford Bay in the West Kootenay, where he began apprenticing as a blacksmith at age 15. When he was 20, he moved to the East Kootenay to take a job as a historical blacksmith/interpreter at Fort Steele. When Fort Steele was privatized in 2001, large scale layoffs followed, and Reimer was one of many who lost their jobs.

Having been a blacksmith for 12 years at that point and determined to forge a career for himself, he took inspiration from blacksmith friends he had in Europe, who were turning away from the traditional application of their trade, and were using their blacksmithing skills to produce modern art.

“These guys were doing this amazing work with public arts and really doing some cutting edge design. It was iron, and it was being forged in the traditional way, but there was nothing traditional about the works they were creating,’ said Reimer. “They were using centuries-old techniques to create shapes and designs that were responsive to the modern world. Before that, as a blacksmith, you’d look at something like the gates of Buckingham Palace, and think ‘well that’s the pinnacle of blacksmithing’. But these guys showed me that, as a blacksmith, you can make something that’s never been made before.”

Inspired, Reimer became a self-employed artist and has since created more than 40 public art sculptures that meld his blacksmithing background with modern art concepts, and which adorn public spaces across North America. Indeed as he spoke with the Pioneer, he was driving back from Carbondale — a town near Aspen, Colorado — where he had just installed a sculpture as part of a public art festival.

“I’m really pleased with how the ‘The Portal’ in Canal Flats turned out. I’ve never made a piece that intersects with the ground before, like it does. I’ve always wanted to do that,” he said, adding with a wry chuckle that the park’s groundskeeper may have a bit of trouble keeping the grass trimmed and weeds whipper-snipped around the edge of the sculpture, where it goes into the ground.

The I-beam is made of forged steel, and creating the sculpture “was a bit of a process,” concedes Reimer. “It certainly wasn’t instantaneous. I played around with a 13-inch model quite a bit before I came up with a concept I liked. Once the committee chose my proposal, making the real sculpture took about a month. I had three helpers, and it took us a month. Mind you, it wasn’t four guys working every day, all day, for a month straight, but the other three all did work on it, and the work took a month,” he said. “It’s very heavy, that’s part of the reason I couldn’t do it alone. And it gets even heavier when it’s hot. You can’t go near it when it gets super hot like that or it will literally melt your clothes.”

The work was done in Reimer’s studio west of Cranbrook, then transported to Canal Flats to be installed.

Canal Flats economic development officer Chris Fields confirmed that while the mural on the wall of the Columbia Discovery Centre counts as Canal Flats’s first public art of any sort, ‘The Portal’ is certainly the village’s first public art installation or sculpture.

The sculpture — which was 100 per cent funded by the Columbia Basin Trust — is one of a number of measures, including building a daycare centre, the Shore to Shore trail, a new highway entrance sign, and new tennis and pickleball courts, that the village has undertaken to reinvent itself in the past few years, in the wake of the closure of the mill.

“In the old days, it didn’t always matter what a community looked like, when it came to creating jobs and attracting residents,” Fields told the Pioneer. “But these days, if you want to attract residents, attract jobs, whether its self-employed entrepreneurs, small enterprises, or large enterprises, they care about living in, or having their employees live in, nice places. So there are two reasons (for ‘The Portal’): one is community pride. We all want to be proud of our community, and visible expression of creativity is part of that. The other reason is attracting investment.”

A plaque will be installed near the sculpture in the near future, explaining its origin and meanings.

“When you place anything creative in a physical space, it’s art. And there’s always curiosity, and sometimes controversy, around art,” said Fields. “But if it sparks dialogue, about why is this here? What does it represent? Then that dialogue is valuable.”

Reimer expressed thanks to Canal Flats for choosing him to make the piece. “I hope it’s meaningful for the village for years to come,” he said.