New public art recalls foggy tale of Navvy Jack’s rooster

Panic ran through the crew and passengers aboard the steamship Yosemite.

A dense fog encircled the enormous, 282-foot vessel as it put down anchor on May 24, 1888. The crowd had travelled from Vancouver Island to celebrate Queen Victoria’s birthday in Vancouver.

Things looked “bad,” recalled the city’s second mayor, David Oppenheimer, in his address to council in January 1892. “There we remained – in the fog – an impatient, nervous excursion crowd off on a picnic, annoyed at the delay and the loss of our holiday,” reads his account in the Vancouver Archives.

“Presently, out of the silence and mist, we heard a rooster crow; the master ordered the anchor up; rang for ‘slow ahead.’ He knew where he was; we passed into Burrard Inlet,” Oppenheimer said.

It was Navvy Jack’s rooster that crowed. Today the bird’s likeness looks out from the point where the pioneer lived 134 years ago.

“Navvy Jack was, at that time, the only inhabitant of what we call West Vancouver. That rooster was one of the first navigating aids to mariners of Vancouver,” Oppenheimer said.

On Oct. 27, 2023, a statue of the proud bird, accompanied by a poetic retelling of the Yosemite’s rooster rescue and a landscape depiction of the scene – all cast in bronze – were installed at Navvy Jack Point Park.

Before creating a piece of public art, the approach taken by Imu Chan is to research deeply to understand the history and story of a place. “And try to build something that is perhaps forgotten over time that we find interesting, that bears witness to our collective heritage,” he said.

After several on-site consultations, anticipation began growing in the community for the piece to arrive.

“Oh, it’s finally done!” some of them told Chan and he installed the piece.

Perched upright, with his red “comb” flowing atop his head, the rooster appears aptly prideful of his raucous profession.

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