Longstanding Indigenous statue in North Bay, Ont., laid to rest at a nearby provincial park

A controversial statue of an Indigenous man that stood at a busy intersection in North Bay, Ont., since 1988 is being laid to rest at a nearby provincial park.

The large statue, called Nibissing, was part of a series of carvings called Trail of the Whispering Giants by American artist Peter Wolf Toth.

Toth told CBC News he's always felt a kinship with Indigenous people and created the carvings to bring attention to the injustices they have faced.

He eventually carved one statue for each U.S. state and carved the North Bay statue when he was invited to the city in the late 1980s.

"It is one man's expression, interpretation and love for another people," Toth said.

The five-metre statue stood for years at the busy intersection of Highway 17 and Seymour Street in North Bay.

It was on the same lot as the Dionne Quintuplets home before that house was moved in 2017 to a downtown park near Lake Nipissing. When the house was moved, the Rotary Club of Nipissing, which first erected the statue, moved it into storage.

Bill Steer, the general manager of the Canadian Ecology Centre at Samuel de Champlain Provincial Park, east of North Bay, heard the statue was sitting in storage.

Steer wrote a story about the statue in the local newspaper, which prompted a wider discussion. Some people considered it an important part of the city's history, while others pointed out its depiction of an Indigenous man, with a long nose and strong jawline, was dated and controversial.

Steer connected with the Rotary Club and Maurice Switzer, a board member with the North Bay Indigenous Friendship Centre, to give the statue its final resting place.

"What they do with totem poles, real totem poles in places like British Columbia, is they don't try to preserve them," Switzer said.

"They allow them to stay in place and to go back into the earth like people do."

Switzer said the statue has become an outdated way to recognize Indigenous people.

"Things change and there are other ways to recognize Indigenous peoples," he said.

Steer said the statue will be laid down in the Earth near the Canadian Ecology Centre.

"We're going to have a special pipe ceremony and drumming," he said. "Return [the statue] to the forest, to mother Earth, to the land."

As for the artist who created it, Toth said he supports the idea.

"Even if the statue is not standing vertically, in a horizontal position, it can still speak volumes to the Native Americans that it honours; all the First Nations of Canada facing injustice," he said.

"That's the purpose of my work and always will be."