.082 Singsong

History is a melting pot of facts and fictions. It is tinted with imagination, with its fine grains shift continuously through time. The tapestry is especially colourful during the early years of European settlement, when tales and rumours of the land were told over sunny porches and dimly-lit saloons, across horse carriages in passing, from villages to mountaintops to the sea. The ones that slipped past official channels turned in sailors’ shanties, lumberjacks’ folklores and grandmothers’ lullabies. They precipitate in the collective memories of the populace like the grey mist shrouding the coastline.

“Singsong” is a public art installation that reveals a small snippet within the larger effort of preserving the life stories of Navvy Jack, in whose namesake the project site is called. Inspired by how Indigenous Nations use storytelling to transmit knowledge, beliefs and aspirations (Navvy Jack’s wife Rowie was the Granddaughter of Old Chief Ki-ep-i-lano), the art installation passes on a story of Jack’s rooster that has taken on different meanings over time. How a rooster’s morning crow saved a stranded ship across the Salish Coast, and the many excursionists on it, indulges our wildest dreams. Using a peculiar side story as a catalyst of conceptual exploration, “Singsong” unravels the many facets of our collective memories. It blurs the boundaries between artifacts of commemoration and whispers of our imagination. 

The public artwork comprises two distinct installations and are installed at different elevations within the neighbourhood park. Closer to the upper approach is a full size bronze rooster standing atop a plaque, with a poem written based on the loosely documented event: in the morning of May 24, 1888, the steamship Yosemite, arriving from Victoria to Vancouver fully boarded to celebrate the Queen Victoria’s birthday, was stranded in heavy fog off Burrard Inlet, only to be rescued by the calls of Navvy Jack’s rooster. The second installation is closer to the lower approach of the park - a bronze relief depicting the event. The picture is drawn based on archival research of the steamship, Navvy Jack’s home and the North Shore landscape at the time. The art pieces create a spatial storytelling by standing at different points in the park and viewing towards the actual location of the event, and the experience is most magical on a foggy day.