A handmade statue that disappeared after washing the banks of a swollen river in Winnipeg earlier this week was saved by a group of canoeists and kayakers who set out to find it on Saturday.
Charles Birchill, an avid rower of Winnipeg, said it was rumored that the fiberglass arm, which was taller than a man, was no longer on the banks of the Seine in Winnipeg.
Rowers said the statue was on the shore, not far from the highway around the city’s perimeter, for more than a decade, owned by a museum worker who saved the former exhibit from rubbish.
“I think this is one of those things that everyone is looking for when rowing on this side of the river. “It’s a landmark that’s fun to see on the beach,” Birchill said in a telephone interview Saturday.
Flood warnings and warnings have been in effect in Manitoba for several weeks, although the site of the statue is downstream from where the Seine River passes through a canal under the Red River flood. When flows increase along the Seine, much of the excess water is drained into floods, regulating the flow downstream.
However, Birchill said the river was higher than usual earlier this week, possibly tilting his arm and carrying it away. It is unknown at this time what he will do after leaving the post.
On Saturday morning, two canoes and two people in open kayaks set out on the Seine to look for him. Birchill said they had reached about 600 meters downstream, where they noticed the giant’s hand swimming against a fallen tree.
“The hand was right on the surface, so it was pretty easy to see, but we had to go up a few corners, so you wouldn’t be able to see it from normal footpaths or from a small number of houses along the coast,” he said. Burchil.
Initially, the rowers thought they would be able to pull the arm to shore and transport it by land, or perhaps lift it onto one of their canoes and carry it back home. But Birchill said they soon discovered it weighed at least a few hundred pounds.
So instead, he said, they installed ropes so they could pull him between two canoes in a way that wouldn’t be damaged by bumps in the canoes or trees.
It took about an hour of rowing upstream, but they finally reached their destination, where the owner of the statue greeted them and they pulled her back to her normal position.
“I think right after we left there was a group of people – I hope – walking along the Seine and I think one of their hopes was to see the hand,” Birchill said.
“So somehow we set it just in time to get it back before anyone came looking.”
Add Comment