Fredericton eager to save beloved beaver sculpture

If you grew up in Fredericton, you would know the sculpture of two beavers that adorned Officers' Square for over half a century.

And if you've missed seeing it for the past eight years since its removal by city staff, you wouldn't be alone.

"I love this sculpture, I miss this sculpture, I truly have and I think residents have, maybe without even knowing it,"Mayor Kate Rogers said this week as she joked about playing on the sculpture as a child.

One of Fredericton's best-known public works of art is returning to the public eye after being kept in storage to prevent deterioration after cracks were discovered.

The sculpture of two beavers that sat at Officers' Square for decades will now be housed in the entryway to the Beaverbrook Art Gallery.

Originally a gift from the province to Lord Beaverbook in 1959, the sculpturewascreated by Acadian artist Claude Roussel.

WATCH | The legacy of Fredericton's beavers will endure:

After 65 years, these beavers will get a facelift and new lodgings

8 months ago

Duration 2:26

Lord Beaverbook's beavers, a gift from the province on his 80th birthday, will find a new home in the Beaverbrook Art Gallery. The city plans to revitalize the limestone sculpture and make it available to the public.

Max Aitken,also known as Lord Beaverbrook, grew up in Newcastle, now part of the city of Miramichi. He went on tobecome a businessman, politician and newspaper publisher, andserved as aBritish cabinet minister during bothworld wars. He was also a philanthropist, funding the Fredericton art gallery now named after him.

While the beaver sculpture sat in Officers' Square for decades, the porous limestone it was made of began to deteriorate and crack in the elements.

The damage was discovered when construction work began on the revitalization of the square began in 2016. City staff decided to have the sculpture put away in storage, where it's been ever since.

At a council meeting on Thursday, Angela Watson, a cultural development officer for the city,proposed the new location for the sculpture.

"It's clear the beavers have deteriorated over the years," she said. A conservator consulted by the city suggested the cracks be filled to restore the sculpture, and that the work be placed indoors.

"Otherwise they will continue to deteriorate, the cracks will expand, and the sculptures will eventually split," Watson said.

The city began to consider where the sculptureshould go, and Watson said the location needed to be publicly accessible and protected so the history of the piece could live on.

Beaverbrook Art Gallery was chosen as the new location.

"The art gallery was Lord Beaverbook's gift to the people of New Brunswick, and the beavers were New Brunswick's gift to Lord Beaverbrook. So the gallery is a fitting new location for the beavers," Watson said.

A city news release said restoration work will begin later this year, and there will be a public ceremony to unveil the sculpture afterward.

Gallery, Rousselexcited about new location

John Leroux, manager of collections and exhibitions at the gallery, said it's thrilled and honoured to be chosen as a new home for the piece by Roussel.

"It's one of the most important works he's ever done, it's his first public sculpture, it's an icon in Fredericton and in New Brunswick," Leroux said.

"And it was made while he worked here at the Beaverbrook Art Gallery, so what better place to put it?"

Leroux said the sculpture will be placed in the front glass vestibule of the museum, so it's the first thing visitors will see when they enter. People can also view it from outside when the gallery is closed, he added.

The gallery already owns a large collection of Roussel's work, including the miniature plaster model of the beavers he used to plan the full-size sculpture.

But while museum and city officials commended the decision, Roussel also supports it.

"No matter how good the materials are, there is a limit to everything, I guess, so I really appreciate the fact that the gallery will take care of it," said Roussel as he addressed city council virtually after the plan was proposed.

He added that Fredericton was the first city "that really made me feel at ease" when he lived there briefly in his younger years.

"Thank you for everything, I'm really touched and humbled by it all. Thank you."