A FISH TALE RESURFACES
Mural inspired by `ogopogo'
In July 2020, when artist Brad Hays was looking for a project to base a mural on, he was told by a neighbour about an article that appeared in the Calgary Herald in 1942.
Even by 1942 standards, it was a strange piece of journalism. It told the tale of a five-foot “ogopogo” that had been captured in the big lagoon at Bowness park. It was a curiously violent account, chronicling how the creature had been killed by someone named Commissionaire C. Mcdonald, who had “struck off its head, as big as a football, with an axe stroke.” Mcdonald later identified the creature as a ling — a cod-like fish — cooked it and ate it for dinner. He said it tasted “grand.”
Hays was inspired.
So, during a Bowness Neighbour Day meeting last summer, there were discussions about how to best preserve the story.
“It was just so fun, the mystery of this thing,” says Hays. “Everything just kind of came together.”
In partnership with the Bowness Community Association and with the financial help of the Calgary Arts and Culture Community Initiative grant, the piece began to take shape over the past year. Until recently, passersby could watch Hays painting the massive 30-foot-by-five-foot mural under the entrance bridge leading into Bowness Park.
The fact he was painting a giant lingcod inspired by a peculiar 80-year-old article about the capture and violent demise of an “ogopogo” was a conversation-starter all on its own, but Hays was also forced to be creative about how to do the work. It began with a pencil-drawn outline and created with special acrylic mural paint imported from the U.S.
Most of it was done while Hays balanced on a standup paddle board. Just to complicate things, the artist was usually accompanied by Ranger, a future service dog that Hays and his family are training for The Pacific Assistance Dog Society.
“I was hoping to do it before the water rose in the park, so I could stand on the dirt,” says Hays. “It came up way faster than I expected, I guess it always does. I went there on a whim that it might work on a paddle board, and it did. For the first half of the installation, I had a rope attached from one end of the bridge to the other and it acted like a seatbelt and it would tuck me into the walls. When I did a freehand sketch of it with a pencil, it worked out perfect.
“There were a couple of close fails where I almost fell in, especially when I was trying to chat with people,” he adds. “Fortunately, I didn't go in.”
But even before Hays set about putting paint to bridge, he put a lot of research into the topic. His first move was to abandon the term Ogopogo, which can be traced to First Nations folklore.
Hays said he did not want to “dive into any cultural appropriation.”
“It was definitely a five-foot lingcod and it was identified at the time as a lingcod,” he says. “But the legend of what they remember or they saw it as was interesting and really fun, actually.”
To prepare for the project, Hays read up on fish, dinosaurs, regional wildlife, the Bow River and the history of Bowness Park. He also consulted Randy Bottle, a Blackfoot elder.
“We chatted for about three hours,” he says. “I listened to a lot of his stories about the area and the culture. That really helped form the concept for the piece.”
With Bottle's input, Hays decided to expand the project.
Initially, the imagery was meant to just be a “creative reflection of the Calgary Herald story.” But it is also a map that chronicles the journey of the lingcod through the Rockies and into the Bowness Lagoon.
The piece is also full of details that have been drawn into the creature — a stylized image of the Rockies is drawn into the top fin, the fish scales are designed to represent the river rocks of the Bow, an orange fin is a porcupine, representing other wildlife that inhabit the area, and the tail is an image of an owl, representing the birds of the area. The head represents the lagoon.
As part of the agreement with the city, the piece will stay on the bridge for at least five years, Hays said. He hopes it continues to spark conversation.
“Learning about the history of our community is an important one, to encourage people to look into the past of the areas we currently live in,” Hays says. “To connect people together, to engage them, to stimulate conversation. It was an honour to be able to chat with the First Nations elder and knowledge-keeper.
“It was of huge value for me and I hope others do the same thing and learn about the lands that we came from and just listening to the stories they have to tell.”
It was definitely a five-foot lingcod and it was identified at the time as a lingcod. But the legend of what they remember or they saw it as was interesting.