Daron Letts
Northern News Services

Yellowknife (Oct 21/05) - A scraped and scuffed 20-foot mural that once adorned the entrance of the Explorer Hotel will receive some much-needed TLC this winter.

Alex Janvier will repair a mural he painted at the Explorer Hotel in 1973. His work foreshadows industrial development in the North, including the oil pipeline. - Daron Letts/NNSL photos

The hotel brought artist Alex Janvier, of the Dene Suline First Nation in Alberta, back to Yellowknife last week to assess the damage to his 1973 commissioned work, titled The Vanishing North.

The colourful acrylic now fills a wall in one of the hotel's conference rooms. The artwork laces together scenes of stylized arctic wildlife and Dene culture with symbols of the industrial development to come.

Janvier depicted Yellowknife's modern urban skyline years before it took shape. Mine shafts, a military installation and an oil pipeline occupy prominent spaces in his web of Northern images.

"Artists always forecast things a little too early," he said. "The painting is about the significant change in the North at the time. It's a call to First Nations to start standing up for their beliefs. One of these days First Nations are going to say enough is enough, and I'm saying it today."

Ever the visionary, today Janvier paints in watercolour to foreshadow the future challenges of a world faced with a shortage of potable freshwater.

"Northern power is really in water," he said.

"It's vied for by nations to the south because they abuse their natural systems. There is nothing more important at this point in history than water - and we have it."