Wagon Wheels Traditional Geocache
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Difficulty:
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Size: 
(other)
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Mrs. GeoK attends choir practice at a downtown location once a
week. Whenever possible, she likes to park at the west end of
downtown and walk through Prince’s Island Park on her way to
rehearsal. She especially likes the “art walk” on the
island and finally hid a magnetic nano cache at one of her
favourite pieces.
NOTE: the original cache container went missing late April /
early May of 2010. A replacement container has been placed. PLEASE
REHIDE EXACTLY AS FOUND to minimize the likelihood that the new
container also goes missing.
This particular sculpture might provoke some thought about the
history of the park, which is named after Anthony Prince, a
lumberman from Quebec who came to Calgary in 1886 and founded the
Eau Claire Lumber Mill. The Eau Claire and Bow River Lumber Company
dug a channel (now the lagoon) to get logs from Kananaskis closer
to the Calgary sawmill, resulting in an island.
In 1889 Prince formed the Calgary Water Power Company to supply
electric streetlights to the town. Despite its name, the company
used steam generators powered by sawdust until 1893 when Prince
built Calgary's first hydro-electric plant near the east end of the
lagoon. After his death in 1925 the mill was still operational
until 1944. The land was purchased by the City from the remaining
Prince family in 1947.
Since its redevelopment as a park in the 1950s, Prince's Island
Park has been recognized as an urban oasis. In 1999, city council
approved a renovation of the Island, including wetland construction
at the east end ChevronTexaco Learning Pathway and the installation
of several pieces of art, including this one.
Despite our best-efforts on google, we’ve been unable to
learn anything about this sculpture. If you know anything about the
artist, the real name of the piece, when it was created, etc.,
please let us know.
JUNE 1/09 UPDATE: Thanks very much to AirRanger, who found the
cache May 29 and included this information in the "found it" log:
about 40 m south of the sculpture there's an info sign explaining
all the pieces of art in the area. It says this sculpture was made
by a Lorenzo DiPalma as #94 of his "Prairie Progression" series in
1969 and 1971. It is named "Prairie Collage" and "reflects the
process of industrialization"."
The cache is a log only nano, so be sure to bring your own writing
instrument.
Additional Hints
(No hints available.)