The second phase of the Spirit Way rockface sculpture along Mystery Lake Road below Highland Towers has been moved to the backburner as the organization concentrates on getting its wolf park and aboriginal art centre started, says Spirit Way volunteer co-ordinator Volker Beckmann.
"If you can't get the funds it's difficult to do," said Beckmann, noting that government funding applications last year were not approved and that Spirit Way has stopped seeking funding for that particular project. "You can only get so much out of them each and every year."
Phase 2 of the rockface sculpture was originally planned for 2008 and was to have included five more wolves added to the three already there along with a training program to mentor Northern Manitoba artists in large-scale rock carving. It didn't proceed as scheduled because Spirit Way's grant application to the Manitoba Rural Infrastructure Fund (MRIF) submitted in 2006 had to be re-submitted when the program was replaced by the Building Canada Fund and subsequently wasn't approved.
The project began in May 2006 when the first 80 feet of rockface was blasted higher and smoother. A year later, Campbell Monument Company began the six-month task of carving the scene "Howling Wolves at the Moon" drawn by artist Charles Johnston of Winnipeg. Three wolves were roughly carved out of 55,000 lbs of limestone and then brought to Thompson. Over a period of four weeks, James Smith and his assistants lifted the slab and pinned them to the existing rockface, and then the final carving and touch-ups took place.
The cost for that work, raised by Spirit Way, was about $190,000, the organization's one-third share - in lieu of the municipal government contributing tax dollars - of the $538,000 funding proposal submitted to the MRIF.
To Beckmann, the most important thing isn't just getting the sculpture finished so it can live up to its billing as the largest sculpture of its type in Canada. The key is using it as a way to train local artists, which is why he's content to put it off until an aboriginal art centre is up and running in Thompson, where completing the project could form part of the curriculum.
"It would be the only place, as far as we could tell, in North America that teaches large-scale carving," said Beckmann.
The rockface still has a role to play in Spirit Way's plans to position Thompson as a destination for wolf-based tourism.
"The rockface fits into all that because it becomes a tourist attraction," said Beckmann, who is sure the sculpture will garner media interest if and when it starts to grow. "The rockface fits into it all. One feeds the other."
After all, he says, it was art that inspired the plan to make Thompson the wolf capital of the world.
"It's the art that got their attention in the first place," he said, referring to wolf experts from around the world that Spirit Way is developing relationships with. "The intent is still to get it done."
Ironically, the Robert Bateman image that was used for the Highland Towers mural wasn't picked specifically to reflect the large number of wolves in Manitoba. There was a choice of four pieces of Bateman artwork for the mural - a lynx, an eagle, a moose and a wolf - and Bateman said he liked the wolf.
"We said, 'Great, let's use that,'" Beckmann recalls - though maybe the animal's gaze played a part. "The wolf is considered a charismatic animal."
While some may doubt the feasibility of a wolf park as a basis for a tourism industry in Thompson, which Beckmann admits is at least a year or two from becoming possible, he says stranger things have happened.
"Who would have thought 30 years ago that you could build a business around cold weather?"
