A mural that was taken down to make way for Yellowknife’s new hospital, then found languishing in gravel behind the building, has been restored to pride of place outside the facility.
Artist Walt Humphries said in 2020 he was “a little shocked” to discover his 30-foot mural, which originally welcomed people to the old hospital, had been left to the elements.
A friend found it abandoned within view of the hospital, where it had apparently sat for years.
At the time, the territorial government hurriedly wrapped the mural in a tarp and promised the CBC it would be stored and given a new home.
On Thursday, more than four years later, the territory delivered.
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The mural, which depicts people on a boardwalk spanning several landscapes with Yellowknife in the background, has been given a prominent position on the road leading up to the new hospital building, which opened in 2019.
Workers were finishing the installation on Thursday afternoon.
“I just found out it was going back up this morning,” Humphries said of the mural, which he created three decades ago.
“I’m glad to see it’s back, because I volunteered to paint it to give people something fun or interesting to look at.”
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Humphries said the mural had been designed to “show that the hospital covered all of the NWT and part of Nunavut, an enormous area,” in terms of the people it serves. The hospital, which is easily the territory’s largest, also treats patients from Nunavut’s Kitikmeot region.
“Art is meant to be seen,” Humphries added.
The NWT’s health authority said it was “happy to see the mural back.”
“It was never our intent to get rid of the mural,” spokesperson David Maguire said by email on Thursday.
“However, it needed to be moved to both ensure it was not damaged and to enable construction activities on site. We recognize at the time – when the Stanton build was in full swing – the mural was not immediately preserved in storage. However, it was eventually moved to a location where it could be preserved for future use.
“The plan was to reinstate the mural after site works were complete, so residents could once again enjoy this community artwork created by Walt Humphries. With the completion of the Łıwegǫ̀atì facility” – the refurbishment of the old hospital into a new-look healthcare building – “we are now at a point where we can place the mural on site.”
Humphries set people passing the mural a challenge as they explore it.
“Try to count the number of bears,” he said.
