The Colwood community, and visitors, seem to care for the wooden critters living at the Esquimalt Lagoon.
Each time the driftwood displays, sculptures of birds, fish and more are damaged or stolen, they come through to help the artists recoup, recover and rebuild.
The latest round – a kingfisher and grey squirrel discovered missing on Oct. 17 – has creator Paul Lewis dismayed, and searching for alternative options in tracking the artworks.
A barred owl was also rudely toppled.
The bulk of his sculptures are birds, because the lagoon falls in the Victoria Migratory Bird Sanctuary, but he’s branched out in recent years to include fish, bears, cougars and sasquatch. Lewis’s work can also be seen near Juan de Fuca Recreation Centre, where he donated more than a dozen pieces that adorn the 1.5-kilometre trail loop. There they live in the trees and are rarely targeted.
The creative work he does for free on public land is among the reasons Lewis was named the 2021 Arts Advocate of the Year in the Goldstream Gazette’s West Shore Local Hero Awards.
But this latest round of beach-side theft and vandalism is far from a first for Lewis. A similar owl was knocked down in spring 2023 when another pair of his works were stolen.
This time, he’s had enough, crowd-sourced information on airtags.
“I got a flood of information,” Lewis said. Including a message from an old school friend who had an extra kicking around, and a supporter who plans to order different tracking devices for him.
He plans to hide the devices in sculptures – something he’s adept at, having hidden a vial of his sons ashes in another work about town.
“It’ll be accessible to me, but for anybody else you’d have to rip them apart,” he said. “It’s easy enough to do,”
Replacement sculptures are already in progress, with Mother Nature already providing the bulk of the supplies, and the hardware store the rest.
“I haven’t really decided yet. The pieces (of driftwood) talk to me as I’m doing it,” he said. “I’ll continue to make new ones, there’s more wood that floats up on the beach every day. They’re not going to win; there’s more wood than thieves.”
He plans to craft a hummingbird – or maybe a blue jay (not Stellar), but feels it might be too high profile, and targeted for theft.
If it is, it’ll likely be tracked.
Lewis has no problem letting potential thieves know that. He plans to return signage to the displays, noting that they’re equipped with a tracking device, as one more deterrent.
The theft and vandalism were reported to West Shore RCMP (file No. WS-20319).
UPDATE:
On Oct. 25, West Shore RCMP recovered two out of the three sculptures. The kingfisher and squirrel have been recovered and returned to the artist who created them. Police are still looking for the third hummingbird sculpture. No arrests have been made; police continue investigation and thank the public for calling in the tips that lead to the recovery of the sculptures.
