Yellowknife (Apr 22/05) - If you've seen people walking around town with plywood ducks under their arms, rest assured it's all for a good cause.

Ecology North provides artists with a plywood "canvas" every year and asks them to go wild. The results are then auctioned off during Earth Week.

Stephen Fancott builds the bird houses and Diane Boudreau cuts the animal shapes. Last year it was fish. This year it's birds.

And this year the birds are part of their own ecological circle of life.

Boudreau salvaged the plywood from Johnson's Building Supplies.

They gave her the remains from the two-dimensional caribous Johnson cut for Caribou Carnival.

"So the birds came from leftover caribou," said Boudreau.

After Boudreau cuts, sands and primes the plywood shapes, the finished product is limited only by the individual artist's imagination.

"We hand them over to local artists, though not necessarily professionals," said France Benoit, Ecology North.

Artists, amateurs and children volunteered their talents for the project.

Benoit said that when Ecology North first put the creations up for auction, bidders enjoyed looking at the collection so much that the following year they put on an exhibit.

The birds and bird houses are on display at the Prince of Wales Northern Heritage Centre until next Saturday's coffee house at Northern United Place when they will be auctioned off.

Last year, individual fish sold for anywhere from $10 to $150.

This year's works include a woodpecker suited up with a tool belt, complete with miniature wrenches, hammer, screwdriver and tape measure; a stylized metallic duck and a glammed-up "rare New Orleans woodpecker" covered in feathers and trinkets.