Bronze monuments mark change in future story

Bronze monuments
honouring the Huron-Wendat Confederacy and John Graves Simcoe, the first
Lieutenant-Governor of Upper Canada, were unveiled on Aug. 1 at the Rotary
Champlain Wendat Park in Penetanguishene.  The monuments, by Tyler
Fauvelle, were commissioned by the Town of Penetanguishene as part of the
community’s Rendez-Vous Champlain 2015 celebration.  The event
commemorated the 400th anniversary of Samuel de Champlain’s first landing in
what is now Penetanguishene, on the shores of Georgian Bay. Sculpted in
clay, cast in bronze and mounted on Georgian Bay granite, the four bronze
reliefs, which are arranged in a circle, represent the core members of the
Wendat Confederacy:  The People of the Bear, Cord, Deer and Rock. 
The Bear and Cord nations were the largest and oldest of the confederacy,
forming their alliance in the 15th century. “I worked on these pieces with
great respect, and mixed feelings,” said Fauvelle. “We all know that when explorers
reached this land, the future story of Canada’s first people changed radically.
When I sculpted the reliefs, I broke the symmetry of the circles, to show the
fracture of an ancient way of life, a world interrupted.  But, I also felt
the dignity of the Huron-Wendat people, and of a rich culture interlaced with
the land and its natural spirits.”