Published: April 08, 2010 12:00 PM Updated: April 08, 2010 12:30 PM
Six months after Baby Beluga the harbour seal was found beached on White Rock’s shore, a sculpture representing his rescue is now complete.
South Surrey carver Simon Cantin was commissioned to create the piece by Brad Muller, a Tampa, Fla. resident who was staying on Marine Drive for business when he found the distressed seal last August.
After contacting Vancouver Aquarium’s Marine Mammal Rescue and staying with the two-week-old pup until help came, Muller checked up daily with the seal – who he was invited to name – once it was taken to Vancouver’s Marine Mammal Rehabilitation Centre.
Baby Beluga – the 94th seal that the non-profit, volunteer-driven centre rescued last year – was dehydrated and underweight, and said to either have been abandoned by, or had trouble weaning from, his mother.
Several weeks after first encountering Baby Beluga, Muller reunited with him at the centre, an experience he described at the time as "magical."
"You felt a connection that he knew you were there for him."
Muller was so taken by the "once-in-a-lifetime experience," he sought out Cantin, who he had seen doing stone-carving demonstrations by White Rock Pier.
Muller went to Cantin’s studio and helped pick a rock, a B.C. soapstone with grey and black tones that the sculptor found near Boston Bar.
Cantin, who feels strongly about the cause, offered to do most of the labour for free, with Muller subsidizing some of the cost.
When Muller returned to his Florida home – leaving Cantin to undergo what he expected to be 250 hours of work – he continued to receive updates on Baby Beluga, and was sent a video of his Nov. 16 release into Smugglers Cove on the Sunshine Coast.
Before the seal was set free, Cantin visited and took photos of him at the centre, as Muller had requested the carving depict Baby Beluga just before release.
"He was really porky because they fatten them up before they go out on their own," Cantin said, noting seals tend to lose three to five kilograms after being released. "So it worked out really good because I made mine a little bit smaller.
"The face, I got the details so it looks very, very close to what Baby Beluga looked like."
Cantin left the base of the sculpture natural – where a plaque has been attached – so it looks like the seal is on a rock, and applied a protective coating of beeswax and oil to keep it smooth.
After 206 hours of labour, the carving was finished last month. It weighs 92 pounds, and stands a foot high, two feet long and a foot wide.
"Simon did a magnificent job," said Muller, who returned to White Rock on business a couple months ago. "When you take a look at it and the colours that were in that stone, it truly is a work of art. I really didn’t have any anticipation but it’s better than I would’ve expected."
Cantin plans to display the sculpture at the Ocean Promenade Hotel on Marine Drive – where Muller has stayed during his visits – after showing it at the B.C. Gem Show this weekend.
Muller then intends to loan it to the Marine Mammal Rehabilitation Centre "for as long as they want it," before taking it back home to the U.S.
"I’m going to have a very special place in my house for it," he said, noting the experience has been a memorable one.
"This whole thing was very ... it was quite a special thing. It’s meant an awful lot."
Brian Giebelhaus photo
Surrey North Delta LeaderThe businessman, the carver and the seal: A rescue story
When Brad Muller left his Tampa, Fla. home two months ago to travel to White Rock for business, he could never have imagined the bond he would make with one of the seaside community’s residents – and that it would be a seal.
The two met on a blistery Sunday last month, when Muller took a walk on White Rock pier.
Baby Beluga – so Muller has since named the harbour seal – was lying on the rocks below, seemingly in distress.
“The tide was way down and it was very apparent that he was labouring breathing and you could see some wounds,” he recalled.
“It was apparent to me that it was in trouble.”
Muller called Vancouver Aquarium’s Marine Mammal Rescue to relay the situation, and waited an hour for them to arrive.
“I wanted to make sure that nobody messed with the seal at all,” he said. “I didn’t want anybody to go after it or in any way cause the seal to have any more harm than it already had.”
Muller led the two MMR staff members to the rocks, where one of them used a dinghy to reach the two-week-old pup.
“The seal, out of desperation, literally tried to bite her. She picked it up and it defecated all over her. The seal was so sick.”
After it was taken to Vancouver’s Marine Mammal Rehabilitation Centre, Muller phoned for daily updates on the mammal’s health.
“I called every day and got a report. (It’s) like he’s my own son,” he said, noting it’s not unusual for him to bond with animals.
“I have three puppies and I treat them like they were my own sons.”
The seal was dehydrated and underweight, according to co-ordinator Lindsaye Akhurst, who said he may have been abandoned by his mother or had trouble weaning from her. He was the 94th seal that the non-profit, volunteer-driven centre has rescued this year. It is now up to 98, and usually sees more than 100 a year from all over the B.C. coastline. After performing a physical exam and blood tests, staff gave the seal fluids for rehydration, and tube-fed him the first few days.Akhurst said he has since gained weight – he’s just under 11 kilos – and is eating fish on his own. Once he adds more weight, she said, he will be moved from his own tub to pre-release pools. “It gives them a chance to be with other seals and compete for food.”When he’s ready for release, Akhurst said staff will pick a location that has a food source and is inhabited by other seals.
Releases are done up the Sunshine Coast, the Gulf Islands and some local beaches where there are few people, she added.
Recognizing Muller’s connection with the seal, the centre let him pick a name. “It’s definitely important for us, because we do have members of the public and even our own volunteers who do help out with the rescue... to really involve the public and our volunteers,” Akhurst said. “I think it’s a great opportunity for the public to have some involvement in the process.”The organization has an annual theme for naming seals – past themes have included capital cities, The Lord of the Rings and Harry Potter – with this year’s being ‘mammals.’Muller asked a staff member to read from a list to see what was still available.“As soon as they got to beluga, I said ‘Baby Beluga, that’s perfect.’”Muller visited him at the facility earlier this month, upon invitation from the staff.“I wanted to see Baby Beluga,” he said. “I looked down at him and he looked up at me and I could just imagine what he was thinking... It was magical, it was wonderful. You felt a connection that he knew you were there for him.”Muller was so taken by the “once-in-a-lifetime experience,” that he sought out an artist he had previously seen doing stone carvings by White Rock pier.Muller told Simon Cantin about Baby Beluga, and hired him to create a sculpture. He went to Cantin’s studio and helped pick a rock, a B.C. soapstone with grey and black tones the South Surrey sculptor found near Boston Bar. Cantin suspects it will take 250 hours to carve, and the finished product will be 20 inches long, 14 inches high and 12 inches wide.Muller plans to loan the completed sculpture to Marine Mammal Rescue, which he credits for saving Baby Beluga’s life.“The facility that does this, they’re incredible,” he said. “They just do miraculous work down there.”Cantin, who feels strongly about the cause, said he will do most of the labour for free, with Muller subsidizing some of the cost.“It does have a meaning for me,” he said of the project. “I believe in the work that the Marine Mammal Rescue Centre does.”Baby Beluga’s story has touched Muller’s friends and family back home in Florida, who have “taken him into their hearts,” and donated money to Marine Mammal Rescue.“Everyone gets updates every day. I speak to my fiancée every day and she puts his updates on Facebook.”Muller hopes others follow suit and support the rescued animals. “These mammals are living, breathing, thinking things, just like we are. And they’ve got hearts and souls and brains,” he said. “People can save this planet one good deed at a time.”Although he is getting ready to leave his temporary abode at Marine Drive’s Ocean Promenade Hotel and return to the U.S, the experience Muller has had during his stay is not one he is likely to forget.“This is the best thing I’ve done,” he said. “It’s the biggest warm-and-fuzzy.”For more information on the Marine Mammal Rescue Program, or to donate, visit www.vanaqua.org/mmrr/If a seal is found, Akhurst said it is best to stay back, keep people and pets away and call the centre at 604-258-SEAL (7325).
Surrey Artists off to Ottawa for Canada Day Celebrations
June 23, 2008
Six artists from the City of Surrey will be demonstrating their talents at Canada Day Celebrations in Ottawa. As Surrey is a 2008 Cultural Capital of Canada the artists were invited by Ottawa to demonstrate their talents at the Canada Day Celebrations.
The artists attending the event are:
Simon Cantin – Stone Sculptor
Norah Cantin – Jewelry Designer
Deborah Putman – Dream Art Expressions
Murray Sanders - Potter
Jeremy Turner – GLOCAL Digital Media project
Duniya Bhangra Dance Team
The City of Surrey has been designated a Cultural Capital of Canada for 2008.
The Department of Canadian Heritage awards the designation. To celebrate, the
City has developed eight unique projects to raise awareness and promote the
value of arts and culture in our community. The projects include the upcoming
Fusion Festival, a three-day celebration of food, music and culture happening
at Holland Park from July 18 – 20th. To learn more about the Fusion Festival
“The City of Surrey is proud to be a Cultural Capital of Canada for 2008.” said Mayor Dianne Watts “It is great to see these artists having a chance to showcase their talents at the Canada Day Celebrations in Ottawa. The artists truly show the diversity of talent that exists in Surrey.”
“The City of Surrey is fortunate to have such a diverse group of talented artists.” Councillor Linda Hepner, Chair of the Parks & Community Services Committee stated “Being selected a Cultural Capital of Canada allows us to share this talent with not only Surrey residents but also residents throughout the lower mainland and now Canada!”
The individuals in the photo from left to right:
Deborah Putman, Cllr. Linda Hepner, Murray Sanders, Mayor Dianne Watts, Norah Cantin, Simon Cantin, Jeremy Turner
Peninsula residents Simon and Norah Cantin have been selected by the Arts Council of Surrey to represent the city during Canada Day celebrations in Ottawa.
The couple will be flying east June 29 for the event at Jacques-Cartier Park, where they will display and demonstrate their handmade crafts.
There are just a handful of West Coast artists nominated to participate in the celebration; local artists Deborah Putman and Murray Sanders will also be attending.
Simon will show his stone carvings, and Norah will exhibit her handmade jewelry, also made from stone.
The two have been members of the Surrey Rockhound Club for about 10 years, and have travelled around the province collecting various types of rock for their art.
Simon is known in the community for demonstrating his carving on White Rock Beach beside the museum.
Norah is an experience jeweler, having created jewelry for the last 20 years, and opened up her own business, Cantin’s Canadian Crafts, six years ago.
She also makes cards of clay and wax, and creates paintings with oil, acrylic and watercolour.
“It’s very, very exciting,” Norah said of the opportunity.
Simon Cantin was walking along the train tracks when he saw something glimmer from the corner of his eye. It was a warm October afternoon three years ago in Boston Bar – past Hope and on the Fraser River – and he had been scouring the area just for that sparkly sight.
He used his usual searching technique – walking 20 feet along the rough ground while straining his eyes on the grey and jagged rocks, before stopping and looking back over his shoulder, as if to catch the
glimmer off-guard and spot it at a different angle. When he had no luck, he would retrace his steps another 10 feet before continuing forward again.
But the sun was bright that day, and its rays reflected off the tip of the stone, revealing its location to Cantin’s expectant gaze.
Only a couple of inches were sticking out, but by the time he had carefully dug around it and lifted it from the ground, he was looking at a 175-pound slab of B.C. soapstone.
The 50-year-old carried it the half-mile to his car on his back.
Cantin has a love for the outdoors, and he bears its signs in his burly stature and thick beard streaked with grey that covers his chin and jawbone.
Small, kind eyes peer from behind large-framed glasses as he smoothes over small stones with his rough fingertips.
“You need a good eye to find them. First time, I didn’t find much. Now, it’s like second nature.”
Jade, agate, serpentine, jasper – all hand-picked from across the province, including White Rock Beach, and polished for a shiny, smooth finish.
He has mounted some of the stones on settings for jewlery, making necklaces, rings and belt buckles.
But his real passion is carving.
His carvings can be found all around his South Surrey home – a pearly white Spirit Bear which took 240 hours to carve out of alabaster, stands near his front door; a soapstone bird – about the size of a hand – stands in his living room on a serpentine base; and a collection of crystals and stones he has gathered
on his travels line a glass display case next to his television.
“Everywhere in B.C. you’re going to find something,” he says. “It’s just a matter of knowing what you’re looking for.”
He has dozens of rocks in cue, waiting to be transformed into a wild animal or a collage of images.
Slabs of champagne jade, soapstone and marble decorate his garden, while a wooden box beside it spills over with various untouched stones glinting brightly in the sun.
He knows every rock’s composition and remembers exactly where he found it.
“I’ve got stones everywhere,” he says, rummaging through the pile. “Eventually, I’ll carve them.”
It was in a similar heap that three years ago, the slab of soapstone he brought home from Boston Bar waited eight months to be carved.
• • • Cantin uncovered his passion for carving rocks when he and his wife
joined the Surrey Rockhound Club 10 years ago. The club has 140 members who teach each other various skills, such as polishing, jewelry-making and carving.
Members also take field trips a few times a year to search for rocks. “All of us are rockhounds,” Cantin says. “We can socialize with other people who enjoy stones.”
The group will hold its Annual Rock and Gem Show this weekend, 10 a.m. to 5 p.m.,
at Sullivan Hall, 6302 152 St. The show will feature demonstrations, sales tables and games for children. The club also uses the hall as its workshop, renting it yearround.
When Cantin began carving, he decided to find his own materials instead of paying
$12-15/pound for rock – which he learned to do through the club. Now – while his wife makes stone jewlery – Cantin works in his shop in the backyard, picking rocks from the heap in the garden and bringing them to his workbench where he carves them. He uses simple tools – a wooden mallet, chisels, files, rasps, sandpaper and water.
When he begins carving a rock, he never plans what it will be. Every rock has faults in it – especially his favourite, B.C. soapstone – and shapes begin to appear as he fixes those faults. “I don’t decide what I’m going to carve,” he says. “I let the rock tell me what it wants to be.”
He had no idea how true that would be, when he struck the chisel for the first time
in the stone he brought home from Boston Bar eight months before.
• • • As Cantin hammered the mallet into the stone, he began to see the shape
of two faces, so he carved around them and accented their features. He saw two diving birds begin to take shape as he followed the rock’s grooves, and outlined them as well. After about 150 hours, he had a two-foot sculpture.
When he was finished, Cantin went on the computer and surfed the Internet. He accidently pressed a button and landed on a website with an article that described
how, in some beliefs, a person’s spirit comes from the sky, travelling from lightening, to birds and then to the body. “Energy from the world is believed to come down to people from the things around them,” he says.
He looked at his sculpture: two birds diving from the sky towards two faces imprinted
beneath. “It’s karma, it’s energy – it’s meant to be that way,” he says. “To me (the sculpture) represents my spirit.”
He believes when he sells it, the positive energy in the stone will pass on to the buyers. He named it Lightning Spirit.From the ground near the train tracks, to the half-mile trip to his car; from waiting for eight months amidst a pile of other rocks, to being carved into a sculpture; Cantin believes he made the piece for a reason. And it all started with a glimmer.
