Paul Bickford
Northern News Services

Fort Smith (May 24/04) - A legendary whooping crane credited with helping save the species from extinction has arrived in Fort Smith.

Canus, who died last year in the United States, has found its final home on display at Northern Life Museum.

The whooper was met with great excitement in Fort Smith when it arrived May 19.

"It puts the museum on the map," says Don Jaque, the chair of the museum's board of directors.

"It's such a special bird," Jaque says. "It meets all our greatest expectations."

Museum curator Kevin Brunt agrees Canus is a very important addition to the museum.

Brunt also notes Canus arrived just as other whooping cranes are returning from the south for the season. "It has a nice poetic touch to it."

Canus was brought north by Glen Browning, a taxidermist from Surrey, B.C., who is a specialist in preparing birds for exhibit.

Jaque says Browning did a wonderful job.

The whooping crane display will feature a painting by Fort Smith artist Helene Croft. It is a scene from the Patuxent Wildlife Research Centre in Maryland, where Canus spent almost all his 38 years in a captive breeding program.

186 descendants

When he was captured in 1964 in Wood Buffalo National Park, there were only about 40 whooping cranes in the wild. When he died, his descendants numbered 186.

An unusual aspect of Canus -- "Can" for Canada and "us" for the United States -- was he had just one wing. The other was injured and amputated.

The official unveiling of the Canus exhibit was on May 22. At the same time, the Northern Life Museum reopened its upstairs galleries, which are nearing the end of renovations.