Dalton Trail Trail Gallery

04/08/2025

08/29/2024

Last week to participate in this round of "A Collection of Questions!" Susan Walton and I will remove the sculpture and writing desk on Monday. We will transcribe the questions you have provided and leave the canvases in place till September 20 for your perusal and enjoyment. We have received over 100 questions so far.

04/30/2024

Saturday May 4 at 11 am please join me in the Dalton Trail Trail Gallery for a time of change. Thank you to everyone who signed the petition and wrote letters. Read on to learn what is happening next.

Some of this change is seasonal and was going to happen anyway. It's time the Winter Garden came down to make way for the spring flowers. That was always the concept. Going forward the Winter Garden will be installed between Nov 1 and Apr 1. We'll have to choose a day that's not too cold to install and de-install. We will store the pieces that are still useable in my tote.

The Finding Our Way piece with the flagging tape will stay for now. We will need to check in with the city once a year to make the case that people are still using it. We will need to take the flagging tape from my glass dresses and tie it into the larger dress.

I would like your help with removing my other work. Going forward we will apply to the city with ideas to install for defined durations.

I have asked the city for permission to re-install the bike reflector fish that were up in the gallery, in particular so that the Little Hands Childcare Centre has something to visit, but also because other people have mentioned how delightful they found them. They will swim in a beautiful way through the opening buds of spring from the turn onto the path to Finding Our Way. I would love it if you had a hand in placing them. It's a fun thing to do.

If you will miss some of my pieces, they are available for purchase or trade. We can also ask the city for permission to exhibit them for defined windows of time. I'm also keen to collaborate with other artists to make and install work in the gallery. Let's talk.

Making and breaking are part of each other. It is true that something is being broken here, something that had good things in it. I feel the sorrow of that. But it seems to me anger and resistance is not as much use here as solidarity, imagination and generosity. Of embracing change. Hopefully we are extending the circle to include the City, who after all, are also part of our community. It's an opportunity to make something even better building on what we've done so far. What's next is up to us. Who is us? Depends who shows up.

I hope to see you Saturday. I will have some cookies to share.

Vince Fedoroff
Hillcrest Community Page (Whitehorse, Yukon, Canada)
Jilly Bean
Heather Von
Paola Hernandez
Meredith Pritchard
Suzanne de la Barre
Amanda Graham
Amanda Beth
Erika Rozsa-Atkinson
Andria Pedlar
Janet Patterson
Heather Leduc
Margaret Noble
Elijah Smith Elementary School Council
Heather Ashthorn
Lori Beavis
Caitrin Pilkington
Heidi Marion
Sue Sauve
Laurel Pluck
Nicole Tatam

04/10/2024

Folks interested in the outcome of the Dalton Trail Trail Gallery: you can register to address Mayor and Council at a meeting at 5:30 pm on April 15 by emailing [email protected]. Unfortunately I can't do it at that time and date myself, but perhaps it's better if other people do this anyways. Please pm me if I can provide you with any information to support your petition.

04/08/2024

I will be meeting with Parks in the Dalton Trail Trail Gallery on Wednesday at 2:30 pm.

Has anyone in Hillcrest looked into what seems to be 5 m of road allowance off the back of the Steelox?

Here is another publication drawn from the gallery. It's a collaboration between Suzanne de la Barre and myself, published by the International Society for Education through. It starts on p. 14.

Hillcrest Community Page (Whitehorse, Yukon, Canada)

04/07/2024

Dalton Trail Trail Gallery update:
Based on your encouragements to not give up and keep trying to initiate dialogue, I called the constable behind the warning notice and he directed me to talk with Parks. I'm in the process of setting up a meeting with them, hopefully this coming week.
Folks have set up an online petition. The comments in there have helped me a lot and given me good questions to ask about what's going on there. Thank you. Someone said that the city does not acknowledge online petitions - I don't know if that's true. At least one person has emailed directly to the city expressing their concerns, and I would encourage you to do the same. The constable's email is [email protected]; as far as I know so far that's the place to direct your comments.
I am holding off on doing an interview with CBC until after the meeting with parks, but I did send CBC a statement. I've pasted it here below.
If you are the person whose complaints are shutting down the gallery, and you'd be willing to talk it over to try to find common ground, please dm me so we can set up a time to do that.
And here are some photos from the gallery yesterday.

CBC statement:
I feel that I shouldn’t do an interview before my upcoming meeting with Parks. I thought I could express, though, my gratitude for people’s expressions of how much they have valued the gallery.
To be honest, I have been wondering if the gallery’s moment were past. It emerged out of the necessities of the pandemic, and that’s not where we’re at anymore. But then I’d be working in my backyard and overhear a child and caregiver on the path. “A fish!” says the child, full of wonder at finding a fish made out of a bike reflector in the forest. And I’d think to myself, well maybe not yet.
The Hillcrest Community Association and Elijah Smith Elementary School have both been part of the gallery’s art activities. The Winter Garden, a project with the Community Association, would have been coming down as part of their spring community cleanup event anyway. Students from Elijah Smith Elementary School have used the gallery as a place to commemorate Red Dress Day, among other things.
I would invite the person or persons whose complaints are instigating the order to close the gallery to contact me by email ([email protected]) so that we can set up an in-person meeting in the gallery to see if we can find common ground. I’m willing to adjust things if that makes the gallery more livable for someone. The spirit of neighbourliness has always been at the heart of what’s going on there.
I hope my meeting with Parks will lead to us finding some way to keep the gallery in place, not so much for me as for others who seem to really enjoy it. If not, please join me in helping take it down April 20 from 11 to 2. I will have cookies.