Bert deVink’s moose is coming to the Cariboo.
Thanks to a current mayor and a former one, the project deVink built in his Camosun College metal art class in the early 1970s will soon be on display in the artist’s hometown. Like a spawning salmon or a migrating bird, the moose is returning to its parent.
“When Bert deVink called me to go moose hunting, I knew it would be interesting,” said Nate Bello, Quesnel’s mayor from 2002-08 and councillor before that since 1992, but now a Vancouver Island resident. “Bert has been a personal buddy and a friend of the city for years and, although, my skills with a rifle are not that great and I wasn’t into killing animals, I was intrigued. To my relief, he just meant for me to find the moose sculpture on the Interurban campus of Camosun College that he had created as a student there more than 50 years ago. Bert wanted the college to release the moose from its captivity and be free to roam the Cariboo again. It is his wish that the college give him the sculpture so that he could bequeath it to the City of Quesnel.”
The college did so. Needed, then, was Quesnel’s mayor and council to agree to the $5,000 cost it would require to retrieve the moose from Victoria. Current mayor Ron Paull offered to go get it and herd it home.
“After viewing a photo of Bert’s moose, I immediately expressed to Nate what a wonderful idea this is, and that I would even come to Victoria with my truck and trailer to bring Bert’s moose home. The Camosun College board of directors graciously agreed with the proposal and Bert and friends are delighted.”
The Camosun moose will be deVink’s fourth piece of municipal art, the others found on Reid Street (titled Northern Light affixed to the City Furniture building), the “metal band” in the West Fraser Centre foyer, and one at the Quesnel Women’s Resource Centre.
The Quesnel Art Gallery hosted a Bert deVink retrospective in March of 2017, showing dozens of his metallic magic compositions.
Since moving to Canada from his native Holland, he has lived in Vancouver, the Prairies, Victoria for art school, but also in Williams Lake and Barkerville as well as Quesnel. Now retired and more than 90 years old, he was an industrial welder, and also a lauded musician. In 2020 he was inducted in the Quesnel Arts Gallery of Honour.
“The city has always appreciated Bert’s work,” said Bello. “This work from his earliest days as a sculptor would be the crown jewel and cement his place in the world of Quesnel artists’ luminaries.”
At the March 5 meeting of mayor and council, the $5,000 expenditure was approved.
“My friend (and long-time moose hunting partner) John Matthews, who thrives on transporting complex items such as a life-sized metal moose, has agreed to volunteer to accompany me on our mission to bring Bert’s moose home to Quesnel, after which we will discuss, decide and prepare for a permanent home here in the city for this wonderfully sculptured metal moose,” said Paull.