"Paint the Pits"* Party

February 5, 2001
CBQ interview, Lisa Laco, CBC announcer
and Shawn Allaire, Manager of the Atikokan Mining Attraction

LL: Coming up on this hour, painting the pits, how Atikokan hopes to lure artists to its open pit minesites, we'll have more on that ....

LL: It is 6:15, coming up in just a moment, "Paint the Pits"

LL: Well, Atikokan's open pit mines were once considered scars on the landscape, but today, 20 years after they shut down, the mines have become a mecca for local artists, now a woman from Atikokan is hoping to turn that popularity into a tourism opportunity. Shawn Allaire is organizing this spring's Paint the Pits Party and she joins me now on the line. Shawn, Good Morning

SA: Good morning Lisa

LL: So, okay Paint the Pits, what's that all about?

SA: I do watercolour paints, and I like riding my bike out to the pits, because they are really, quite an awesome landscape and they are a very little known landscape in the region. And I thought that, since I like painting pictures of the pits, and I have been quite taken by the landscape, that this might be a really neat idea for other artists to take a look at the pits and render them with their artist's sensibilities.

LL: So, where did you get this idea?

SA: I think it actually came when I was in the shower, the name came first. Anybody who has grown up in Atikokan, and that is not me, I did not grow up in Atikokan, knows what a "pit party" is. A pit party is a party in the pits, people will get together and have a bonfire, and beer and smokies, and stuff like that. And, the "Paint the" just sort of happened one day. You sort of think on it ... well, that's a really neat name, and not only that, it's a really neat idea. Well, why don't we give it a shot and see, and certainly, it's the name that catches people – Paint the Pits Party.

LL: Oh, absolutely, so you're standing in the shower and this idea comes to you, so tell me about it from there. So you think, I've got a pretty catchy name, so then, what do you do?

SA: There are groups in Atikokan that historically have not worked together. I mean, the Atikokan Intergenerational Centre for Arts and Alternatives, which is quite a mouthful is quite a recent entity. They have a decommissioned school and they are turning it into an arts centre for intergenerational, all generations, activities. So they have an artistic bent with the painting and sculpture and stuff like that. The Pictograph Gallery also has an artistic aspect to it. The Atikokan Mining Attraction which I represent, can tell the story of why the pits are there in the first place, because if they weren't there, Steep Rock Lake would look like any of the myriad number of lakes in Northwestern Ontario. And then finally, and this one worked its way in, in a very odd way, the Atikokan Walleye Hatchery, is up and running in May, and they are situated right beside a very picturesque venue called Little Falls. And so, it just sort of came together, each organization can present a part of a larger event. Now this is not going to be a huge money maker for anybody, but it will be an awareness builder for the pits, for the arts community in Atikokan, which, for a very small community is extraordinarily vibrant.

LL: That's remarkable, what is it about Atikokan that brings out that part of people's lives?

SA: Well, I guess, if you have that in you and you go through a long winter, you gotta do something. If you don't have a snowmobile, if you don't hunt or fish, you're in a small northern community, much like the pioneers were, and you have to do something.

LL: So, someone says, this sounds kind of intriguing, what are they in for? Tell me what you've got planned for them.

SA: Tentatively, we are thinking that it will go from the Friday evening, May 11 to the Sunday afternoon, May 13. On Friday night, there will be a small social at the Mining Attraction where I will give a bit of an overview as to what the pits used to look like when they were an operational mine, and why they are there and a bit about the naturalization process. There's not a lot to tell about the naturalization process, because, really, the earth has done that itself for the past 20 years, it has just sat there quietly getting greener.

LL: So how are you getting the word out?

SA: Right at the minute, there is, of course, a webpage....

LL: I'm looking at it right now, Shawn, it's a terrific page.

SA: It's got some pictures I took out there and it's got a small version of a mural that Heather Schmutzer, the Chair of the Mining Attraction, has done which is on a wall in Atikokan, and right now, it's in the planning stages. I've emailed Bob Steele of the Arts Report, and I'm talking with you, and closer to the event, of course, we'll be trying to get in touch with artists' groups in Thunder Bay. The first artist group that I have contacted is the Thunder Bay Watercolour Society, and there has been some positive interest from that group.

LL: A lot of people would think "open pit mines".....yuck, you know.

SA: I know

LL: What could possibly be beautiful about an open pit mine? Tell me why it's beautiful.

SA: I think part of it is, you have to know what it looked like when it was an operational mine. And yes, you say the words "open pit mine" and people generate the image of an industrial looking thing, but really, until you see the pictures of how deep these pits went, how massive the compromise of the landscape was...It was done, and people made their lives on it, so I am not going to judge what they did as bad in any way....but the landscape was left, extraordinarily compromised. Twenty years later, there have been fast growing species like poplar and different shrubs and stuff like that, that have grown up. The edges on the pits have softened, this is inevitable with snow and rain and wind and all of that. And the pits have filled with water. So what you look at has been described as a "Green Grand Canyon". It is quite like that. Not only that, on some of the approaches to the pits, there are these massive, massive rock walls. And if you're standing out there, as I have, in the early evening, and no one else is out there with you, you're out there on your bike, it's quite awe-inspiring.

LL: Was that what it was like the first time for you, the first time you saw it?

SA: Oh, yes, that's what caught me. The whole story of the mine only makes sense if you see the landscape. And when you see the landscape, you see the scale that happened here in the 1940's, 50's, 60's and 70's. It was enormous. And big is very interesting.

LL: When the weekend's over, do you plan to put some of that work up so that people can see?

SA: We hope to....Saturday, it will be the painting venue day, and in the evening we will use the Intergenerational Centre's painting rooms so that artists can put final touches on some of their work. On Sunday morning, we plan a tour of the Walleye Hatchery, which will be in full swing, doing what they do so they can stock the lakes, and some more painting at the Little Falls area. In the afternoon there will be a tour of the Pictograph Gallery, and it's the Pictograph where, I am hoping, even just perhaps the artists in Atikokan will mount a small exhibition of some of their works.

LL: Wouldn't that be interesting, to see all the different artists' representations of the same landscape?

SA: Oh, I think it be wonderfully interesting because artists see different things when they look at the same landscape. And they render them differently.

LL: Well, Shawn, good luck with this. This sounds like an absolutely fascinating project. And I have a suspicion that we will be hearing from you between now and then anyways.

SA: Thank you.