Lynn Lau
Northern News Services

Inuvik (Apr 01/02) - After seven months gazing out at the Arctic Ocean, the Watchers are heading back inland.

Five wooden figures, each about seven feet tall, stood in Debbie and Dennis Raddi's yard for the past seven months, and on March 20, their maker came and collected them.

On that sunny day, Alberta artist Peter von Tiesenhausen arrived in Tuktoyaktuk to pick up his giant wooden men, strap them upright to the back of his 1984 blue Ford pickup, and disappear down the highway with them.

The Watchers have been on a Canadian tour off and on since they were built in 1997. They've almost completely looped the country, installed at various locations for several months at a time.

Ask von Tiesenhausen what the point is and the artist will shrug: "What's the point of any journey?"

He says he has something he wants to say with the solemn, fire-charred figures, but he won't say what it is. He doesn't want it to interfere with people's experience of the work, he says. "Last night, someone said 'What the hell's that supposed to be?' I said 'It's supposed to be five wooden guys in the back of a truck.' "

How they ended up in Tuktoyaktuk is a matter of happenstance.

Van Tiesenhausen carved the figures in 1997 and after taking them around British Columbia and Alberta last year, the artist drove his pickup east. Stopping along the way, he eventually bolted the Watchers to a cliff called the Beamer, near the community of Flat Rock, Nfld.

After three months looking out at sea, the figures boarded a ship. Von Tiesenhausen had secured a spot for the Watchers aboard the Canadian Coast Guard icebreaker Henry Larsen. They were fastened to the uppermost deck, a section called the monkey's island.

Captain John Vanthiel says the figures were good company. "Our ships are always queried to bring different people up to the Arctic. When I got (this) call, I jumped on it. We didn't have to feed them, and they weren't going to argue with us or be too chatty."

The ship was supposed to stay on the East Coast, but unexpectedly got called to the Western Arctic. When von Tiesenhausen heard of the change in plans, he asked Vanthiel to drop the figures off in Tuktoyaktuk. During the transfer to an NTCL barge, which involved a helicopter lift during a windy day, one of the figures broke a leg, which fell into the sea. Van Tiesenhausen had to fly up to Tuk and do the repairs with a borrowed chainsaw.

While he was wandering around the yard at NTCL wondering where to put his figures, he met Dennis Raddi, an NTCL employee.

Raddi remembers how one day the figures showed up, followed a week later by the fellow who made them. "We spoke and he said he doesn't know where to put them, so I offered my place," Raddi says. "I thought it would be cool, and they would be a good conversation piece."

So the figures were installed outside Raddi's living room window with a view to the sea. Over the months, the Watchers drew tourists (one who offered $4,000 to buy each statue), neighbours and other curious visitors.

"A raven would land on their heads and peak in the window," Raddi says. "I think it was one particular raven, because I got to know it pretty well. It would always peak in the window and it would watch me, so to speak."

The next stop for the Watchers could be the Queen Charlotte Islands. But while waiting for his pickup to get fixed in Inuvik after a breakdown, von Tiesenhausen said he wasn't sure whether they'd make it there or not.

"They've sort of dictated to me over the years where they've needed to go," he explains.

"Just by opportunities arising and trucks breaking down at various locations. And timing, you know?"