The Staircase - Caitlind r.c. Brown & Wayne Garrett

Designed for Elbow Island Park, these stairs lead down onto The Wandering Island. As you move down the stairs, materials transition through the language of infrastructure (galvanized steel) to natural woods. Drooping stairs create a moiré pattern, rippling underfoot. You become the stone, skipping over water. Over time, foliage will grow up into the stairs. Referencing fish skeletons, the ribs of a canoe, and the concentric rings of a rock dropped into water, these stairs are the transition point beckoning wanderers down onto the island.

Ephemeral Perch - Lane Shordee
As you cross the ephemeral stream toward the south of the island, you'll find a stepping stone pathway (with engraved text artwork by Kablusiak) book-ended by two large boulders. Chunks have been carved out of the boulders, providing a perch to rest above the flowing waters. Each boulder faces a different direction, giving viewers two unique experiences. In one direction, the water flows away; in the other, water flows towards. The stones represent our species' relationship with the land as witnesses and stewards. When viewing the landscape in different ways, we consider its inevitable transformation. Over time these boulders will shift; making them, and our relationship to the land, more challenging to sit on.

The Stepping Stones - Kablusiak
This project is based on the idea that water holds memory, and imagines the water as a relative you haven’t seen in a long time. By personifying the water, I draw attention to the shared histories between humans and water.​​

This project emerged from my time spent in Inuvik and Tuktoyaktuk during summer of 2018, as I returned to those lands after a 20 year separation. The texts were translated into Inuvialuktun by my mother Holly Carpenter. The phrases, though personal, offer space to include the collective experience of sometimes complex familial relations.

Bridging Whirlds - Laura & Michael Hosaluk
A Creator’s core desire is to create things of enduring value not only in form but in formlessness. A bench acts as the vehicle for one or more to gather; an opening to belong in the interconnectedness of life. A place to sit in the experience of inner expressions combined with the outer world that surrounds. How can the viewer influence the space? How does the space influence the viewer? How often do the two exist at once?

This installation represents imaginative environments that bridge the conditions to invent creative possibility found in viewing our Earth as truly ‘ours’ rather than “mine”.

Sun Chairs - Susan Clarahan & Joel Staples
The Sun Chairs are meant to support a moment of gathered attention, vacation, rest and relaxation, recollective of beach loungers next to swimming pools or the ocean. In these moments the focus can be soft: on the river, the sun, maybe the stars in motion. With the back of the chairs angled towards the sky, our perspective can shift to what is above and beyond.

Late Lunch - Jeremy Pavka & Sean Procyk
Late Lunch is a monument to the mundane. The work depicts an ad hoc break area abandoned by two laborers performing work in a secluded section of The Wandering Island The remaining still-life captures the condition of necessity; utilitarian tools transformed into objects for leisure. The work aligns with the common experience of encountering the traces of human refuse in and around naturalized areas. The placement of the wheelbarrows within the island trail system offers park users an unanticipated site for rest, as well as an intimate place for reflection. The ready-made design is meant to encourage conversation between users, as well as between users and the surrounding ecosystem.