"Canoe & Calipers"

I've driven by this sculpture many times but was always in a hurry so Sunday morning while out for a walk on the Lakeshore I made a small detour of a block to get a pic of this quite unusual piece. The artist is John McEwen whose work I have shown a few times (remember sleeping Teddy - here) and it was installed in 2006 as part of the "% For Art" for private development which is a city program requiring art in development budgets. I always found the piece intriguing and its accompanying sign explains the imagery well. The piece was meant to mark the meeting of 2 technologies - First Nation peoples and early explorers who used canoes to travel on Lake Ontario and the nearby Humber River, and the fact that the site had been occupied by an iron works factory for many years until being developed for condos.